Mirror Image
by sdbubbles
Summary: "A woman frozen and a man still on fire; the crime of fear and the pain of desire; you and me and the mirror between us that begs to explode." - 'Mirror Image' by Rosanne Cash. As matters become desperate and tensions stand at breaking point, what will survive of them when an intervention, however unwanted it is, needs to be staged?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a bit different for me, and I'm not sure I'll continue with it, but I might if I can manage it. If I do, it'll end up a bit dark for a while.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Ric watched from the third floor window as Serena got out of a car. Not her car, but a silver BMW saloon with private plates. The same car she had arrived here in at least three times a week for the past few months. When he had returned from sorting his daughter, Jess, out, he had been surprised to find Serena was in a relationship, but she had been happy and that was all he wanted for her.

In the past few weeks, though, her smile had become tainted and so often forced. She was distracted, tired and defensive, so much so that Jac Naylor had felt the need to pull her aside one morning last week and tell her to get a grip on herself. Serena, of course, had kept that quiet, but Colette Sheward had witnessed it and had asked him if Serena had said anything to him about anything that might have upset her. As far as Ric knew, as far as he was allowed to know, Serena Campbell was blissfully falling for her current partner who drove her around in his fancy BMW.

He was brought back to the present when he realised that Serena was yet to move after stepping out of the car; she was staring up at the building before her as she wiped her cheeks. When she finally moved he noticed it was with a limp; she seemed to have hurt her leg somehow.

He picked his cup of coffee off the banister and went to the lift to meet her. After Colette had aired her concerns, he had not yet had the chance to speak to Serena about it. She had ducked and dived every time she saw him, so she must have known he had been told about her outburst at Jonny Maconie on Darwin. All the man had done was touch her shoulder as he had passed, and Colette said she had lectured him about touching other people when they did not want him to.

When she limped out of the lift, her face fell into an expression of mild horror at his presence. "What do you want, Ric?" she snapped, striding past him as she tried to disguise the fact she was in pain. "Shouldn't you be on AAU?"

"Actually, Guy wants us to work a case together. Apparently it needs both our expertise," he commented as he followed her. Suddenly Serena stopped and closed her eyes, and her face drained white to exaggerate how her eyes were red and had slight marks of tiredness and defeat under them. "Serena, are you alright?" he demanded gently. He reached out to support her, but no sooner had his hand touched her arm did she recoil from him. She'd never done that before. She had never flinched away from his touch. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you," he assured her. She kept her head down and her eyes closed, and it stunned him slightly that his instinct right now to make her feel protected. She was Serena Campbell. She didn't need protected.

"Just..." she whispered. "Just take me to my office."

He reached out once more and put his arm around her waist, and he watched her squeeze her eyes shut in what was either fear or pain – he wasn't sure which. She opened her eyes but she did not look at him; instead she silently let him guide her to the office, helping her sit down in her chair. He had never seen her like this before, and it just about terrified him. "Serena, what's happened to you?" he asked her as she opened her laptop up.

"Oh, I tripped and twisted my ankle this morning," she airily replied, but she didn't look at him. She kept her gaze firmly on a screen that told her nothing expect to wait. "Turns out I shouldn't leave my bag at the bottom of the stairs."

He sighed. She wasn't herself. "What happened with Jonny Maconie last week?" he asked her.

"What's this, the Spanish Inquisition?" she snapped. He was taken aback by her reaction. He saw now what Colette meant when she had said Serena had become a different woman in the space of a few weeks. He feared he would have to venture up to the warzone of Darwin and seek out Jac and Jonny if he was to find out first hand what happened. "What's this case Guy's got us on?"

"Lizzie Archer, the girl we treated last year," he explained. "She's come back with severe abdominal pain and blood in her urine. Are you sure you don't want your leg checked over?"

"Positive."

"Surely you want to check for fractures."

"If it was broken, I think I'd know. I went to medical school too, you know." Her tone shocked him with its aggression. It wasn't normal for her to be this way, to shut him out like this. He was normally the one who could get her to talk and to listen when nobody else to get her to see reason.

Now, though, there was no getting through to her. There was no understanding what she was thinking, and there was no way she was going to let him in right now. "Don't do this to me," he sighed.

"What?" she retorted, finally turning to face him. Her eyes were dark and almost fearful, and he really did not like it.

"You're pushing me away, just because I care about the fact you're in enough pain that you couldn't walk across the ward!" he argued with her. "Is it so _wrong_ that I'm worried about you?!"

"I'm not _yours_ to worry about," she told him brutally. "_You_ swanned off six months ago, or had you forgotten? And in the time you were away I happened to move on with my life!" Ric stepped forward, unable to understand why she was being like this. She knew why he had gone. She knew Jess had needed him. They'd had this argument before he had gone, and in the days after he had returned. He had thought she had grasped that it was a case of needing to leave, not wanting to.

"So I've noticed!" he shouted, finally letting himself lose his cool. "Just because you're with Mr. Nameless doesn't mean I can't be your friend!" He stopped abruptly when he saw the look on Serena's face. It was a look he didn't like, but with her in this mindset he could not say a word about it.

All he could do was turn and walk away before he completely lost his temper with her. As much as he cared for her, this need of hers to be totally independent could frustrate him to no end, especially when he knew she was not herself. He sighed and approached Sacha Levy, knowing that he had to do something to help.

"Sacha," he said as he approached the man. Sacha turned and Ric continued, "Ms. Campbell has hurt her leg so if she needs it, will you help her to walk please? Or try and get her some painkillers and a crutch? If she'll take them, that is. She's not in the best of humours," he warned Sacha solemnly.

He looked surprised but Sacha replied, "Of course. Is she alright?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ric admitted heavily. "All I know is she tried to put weight on her foot earlier and she couldn't even make it across the ward. She won't let anyone examine it. Try if you want but don't be surprised when she rips you apart. I'm just going up to Darwin but I'll be back soon."

Sacha nodded and smiled, and Ric stalked to the lift. He wanted to know what was going through Serena's head, what she was thinking, because he couldn't for the life of him work out why she was blocking him out. She didn't seem vulnerable. She seemed angry. But she had flinched away from him and she had never once done that before. He was trying to tell himself otherwise, but he couldn't help but think she was frightened he might hurt her. He would never hurt her, but she didn't seem to see it. Her judgement seemed so hopelessly clouded.

When he stepped out onto Darwin he was greeted by Elliot Hope, his friend and colleague. "Ric," he smiled. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Jac Naylor and Jonny Maconie," Ric sighed. "Are they in today?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Elliot groaned.

"Still at each other's throats?"

"Oh, yes."

"Are they capable of being in the same room together?" Ric enquired. He wasn't willing to break up any rows between Jac and Jonny, and if he needed to, he would ask them separately.

"As long as you can handle them." They reached the nurses' station and Elliot said, "Jonny, Jac, follow Mr. Griffin please. You can use my office," he added to Ric, who nodded and allowed Jac to lead the way to their office. The air around the redhead told him she already knew why he was here, and as much as he didn't much like her, he was thankful that she had managed to reign Serena in.

Jac sat at her desk and Jonny sat on the sofa, so Ric leaned on the edge of Elliot's desk. "Jac," he addressed her. "What exactly did you say to Ms. Campbell on Friday?"

"That she needs to stop overreacting before someone takes it the wrong way," Jac bluntly informed him. "I told her that even though Nurse Maconie is _the_ most infuriating living being on this planet, it's not his style to scare women."

Ric nodded and turned to Jonny, who was obviously biting his tongue at Jac's provocation. Ric knew that while he was away, Jonny had suffered the tragic death of Bonnie, his fiancée, on their wedding day, and that tensions between him and Jac, the mother of his child, still ran high after their battle for custody over daughter Emma. All of this, Serena had told him before she had become distant and defensive.

"What happened between you and Ms. Campbell?" Ric asked him.

He sighed and ran his hands over his face. "I've been through this a million and one times, Mr. Griffin," he explained. "Ms. Campbell was standing in the exit of the nurses' station. I put my hands on her shoulders to move her a wee bit without interrupting her conversation with Ms. Naylor and she reacted in a way that was completely unwarranted and that nobody could have predicted. She proceeded to lecture me about when and when not to touch other people, and I apologised but pointed out that all I'd done was touch her shoulders to get her to move. It was then that Ms. Naylor told me to see to our patient with Colette, and while I was away, I assume Ms. Naylor reminded Ms. Campbell that there was no need for her to react the way she did. I told Colette what had happened and she went to make sure everything was alright. By the time I was back at nurses' station, Ms. Campbell was gone," he concluded. "I did nothing wrong."

"Nobody's saying you did," Ric reassured him. "Would you say that the incident was out of character for Ms. Campbell?"

"Definitely," Jonny nodded.

Ric looked to Jac for her opinion. "I've never seen her like that before," the surgeon admitted. "She wasn't playing anything up. She was genuinely convinced she was right. I know Nurse Maconie can be a bit more familiar than is necessary, but I also know he meant no harm. Serena didn't see that."

Jonny stood up and said, "Sorry, but am I in some sort of bother over this?"

"No, not at all, Nurse Maconie," promised Ric. "Ms. Campbell isn't taking the matter any further." A look of relief spread across the Scot's face and Ric sighed, "Alright, thank you." They nodded and walked away, but Ric didn't miss the solemn look the pair shared, or the darkly significant glance Jac exchanged with Ric as she walked out the door, leaving him to worry about Serena.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This was meant to be uploaded this morning but I ended up in Dundee, and I got the news that a friend of mine was found dead in his flat, so sorry for that. Thanks as always to those reading and reviewing.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

As the days and weeks passed, Ric watched Serena's limp disappear and her personality return to normal; whatever had been wrong in that few days had diminished into obscurity. She returned to her old mischievous self, the one Ric knew she loved the world to see. Their friendship had settled down again and it was as happy, as cheeky, as affectionate as it always was.

On the surface.

Nearly a month later, as the end of September arrived, he realised it was Serena's birthday at the start of October. Not that she had said anything to him – he happened to see the balloon left in her office by Edward and Eleanor last year, though that birthday turned out to be quite chaotic and really rather traumatic for all involved by nightfall.

"Boo," a whisper smiled in his ear. He turned around to see Serena's gleaming smile. "You had better be thinking good thoughts by tomorrow, Ric Griffin," she sternly instructed him.

"And why is that?" he smirked at her. He liked these days when AAU became too overrun and Serena was called down. Despite the chaos, he enjoyed having her around.

"Because I'm not having my best friend moping around on my birthday," she raised an insolent eyebrow at him. "That would be a sure fire way to ruin my good mood." She patted his back as she walked away to speak to Mary-Claire, presumably to give the nurse orders, and he noticed now that her smile was genuine, that she didn't seem quite as bothered and worried anymore.

Only now that he could see the difference with nothing colouring his judgement did it dawn on him just how unusual that string of incidents had been. "Penny for your thoughts," Raf said across the nurses' station. Ric looked around at him, hesitating but needing an outsider's opinion. "You spend an awful lot of time staring contemplatively at Ms. Campbell these days."

"Does she seem alright to you?" asked Ric.

"Ms. Campbell's had her ups and downs recently," allowed Raf. "Mo told me about the Darwin incident. Sacha said something about her eating the face off him for making her take crutches and painkillers when she messed her ankle up. She ripped Harry apart for the way he treats women, though I'm sure he thoroughly deserved it. But she seems OK now."

"She's not said anything about her personal life to you, has she?"

"Not a scooby what's been going on but I know what you're getting at," Raf explained. It surprised Ric, because Raf had enough to deal with without paying attention to his colleagues too. "She was actually unpleasant to be around for a while. I know she can be thrawn but she's rarely truly unpleasant." Ric sighed, only hoping there would not be repeat performance of her recent attitude. Raf was right; it had almost been unbearable to be around her. "I heard she spoke out of turn to Mr. Self too."

Ric laughed at this. "Serena _always_ speaks out of turn when it comes to Guy."

Raf laughed and shook his head at the point Ric made, seemingly agreeing that it was the one thing that never changed about Serena. "Fair enough. So the moment she willingly hears him out..."

"We'll know there's something seriously wrong," smiled Ric. They shared an amused grin, knowing they were perfectly right – Guy was one person Serena struggled to tolerate, and if she ever stopped fighting him, there had to be something wrong. Luckily, though, she was still glaring distastefully at Guy just about every time they crossed paths. Ric smirked and walked away towards Serena.

"What are your plans for tonight?" he asked her.

"Not a whole lot," she smiled as she signed some papers Harry handed her. "Why?"

"Do you want to go to Albie's for a drink after work?" he offered.

He watched her hesitate; it was odd, because Serena never hesitated at the offer of a free drink. "Um," she said carefully. "Yes, alright." He smiled and went away to see to the large pile of patient notes at the nurses' station. However, when Serena sat down and pulled out her phone, he was not out of earshot. "Peter," she smiled. "Just so you know, I'm out tonight so don't come to the house. I'll probably not be there." Ric watched her from the corner of his eye as her smile turned to a frown as she listened to who Ric could only assume was her boyfriend. "Yeah, it's just drinks with the AAU and Keller teams. Junior doctors, young nurses...someone needs to look after them," she flawlessly lied. It bothered Ric. Why couldn't she just say she was going to spend the night drinking with a friend? "Yeah, just the local." She frowned again when Peter spoke. "Well, I'm spending my birthday with you, aren't I? Don't you think it's fair I get to celebrate with my friends too?" The smile returned to her when she said, "OK. I will see you tomorrow. Yep...OK...bye."

Adele Effanga eyed Serena carefully, clearly thinking the same as Ric was when she whispered to him, "Am I hearing things or did Serena Campbell actually ask permission to go to the pub?"

Ric looked around at the health care assistant, sharing her look of confusion and concern. She was right, of course. It wasn't right. "Just get back to work, Adele," he sighed.

"I'm just-"

"I know and I agree, but, please, just get back to what you were doing," he calmly said to her. She seemed to understand quite quickly and went back over to bed five, leaving Ric to wonder what got into Serena that made her so willing to work around what someone else wanted. Normally she was precisely what Raf said she was – thrawn. Only recently had Raf explained to him what that meant: she was stubborn, and sometimes took great entertainment from making life difficult for everyone.

But right now she didn't. She did what they wanted. She tried to keep the peace when there was no peace to be kept. It was AAU, for heaven's sake. There was no such thing as peace on AAU. There was no such thing as peace on Keller either, thanks to three junior doctors who rubbed each other up the wrong way. There was no peace on Darwin wherever Jac and Jonny were to be found. Peace was impossible here. Peace was impossible anywhere that humans co-existed, because humans always had some frictional forced between them.

"I take it you find it easier to hold your tongue these days," Ric commented lightly. It sounded like a joke even to him, but it was far from it.

"Please, just don't go on, Ric," she warned him, staring at the computer screen. "I don't need two men throwing tantrums."

"Who says I'm throwing a tantrum?" he challenged her.

"You're not yet," she allowed, "but I know you will be throwing your toys out of your pram soon enough." Her smile was insolent, almost flirtatious, almost like the one he had come to know and adore.

It was six o'clock when they ended up in Albie's that night, and Ric took pleasure in seeing everyone enjoy themselves. Here, there were no walls or boundaries. There was no chain of command. It was just the pub. Nothing more or less than that.

When they were handed their third drinks, Ric took it upon himself to turn to Serena and say, "Happy birthday for tomorrow, by the way." He watched her look into her wine glass as she turned ever so slightly pink at the mention of the occasion. "Are you doing anything special?" Serena just shrugged her shoulders and stared at the bottom of her glass; it was easy to see she wasn't all that happy when he really looked. On the surface, she was alright, but below that, something bothered her.

"We'll see," she muttered. "Right now, I just want to get totally plastered."

"You're working tomorrow."

"I don't care."

"You'll be hungover on your birthday," he pointed out.

"I don't care."

"You've got endless meetings with Guy tomorrow."

"I don't _care_," she defiantly insisted.

"You will in the morning," he reminded her. "You'll care when it feels like someone is splitting your head open with a ball-pein hammer."

"Ball-pein?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"I tire of saying 'sledgehammer,'" he retorted. It brought a smile to her stony face, and he couldn't help but smile with her. The smile was genuine, with the warmth he loved to see in her, and that she had recently come to lack. "What?" he asked her when she started to laugh softly.

She looked around at him and said, "You just make me smile, Ric Griffin." It was a strange thing for her to say, and it sent distant alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind, but he couldn't say anything. "Never stop making me smile." He sighed to himself and reached out for her shoulder, squeezing gently. She looked at his hand but did not move, seemingly happy to have him touch her now.

Her hand reached across her body, taking his off her shoulder. She did not throw it away; instead their fingers ended up interlocked, and he felt a pull towards her he had felt many times before. "Serena," he quietly cautioned her. "I don't think you should drink anymore. Come on and we'll get a taxi."

When she didn't protest, he was unnerved a little. She _wanted_ to go with him. Her eyes said it all. In a few minutes they were outside, the air beginning to cool around them. They were able to hail a taxi, and Serena ordered the driver to go to her house via Ric's before they climbed in. "Ric," she said gently when they were halfway to his house. "I've just realised I have to spend most of my birthday with Guy Self. Kill me now. Pretty please?" He met her gaze and grinned at her, knowing she found the idea of spending half her birthday with Guy and the other half on AAU totally abhorrent. They shared a laugh, each knowing what the other was thinking without even having to say a thing.

He looked around at her, happy to see her smiling again. He hated to see her sad.

He was caught by surprise when he felt her lips clash with his. He returned the kiss with passion and enthusiasm, his hand resting gently on her neck, until the car braked at the traffic lights and he remembered it was Serena he was kissing, and she was seeing someone. "Serena," he warned her of her irrationality in that moment, but she leaned in again, and kissed him once more, completely in control of what she wanted.

He didn't pretend to understand this, and there was no way he could have known she was going to do something like this, but he let her. He let her hands go wherever she wanted them to, and he kissed her as forcefully as she kissed him. There was no filter between them. It was nothing but them and the here and now, and the bond and attraction between them.

Hurtled forward when the car braked again, Ric found himself in front of his house. Despite it being his home, it was Serena who climbed over him and got out of the car. She paid the driver and took Ric's hand. "What are you playing at?" he hissed at her as he unlocked the door. "Serena, you've got a-"

She didn't let him speak. She backed him into the wall and kissed him almost violently, and it wasn't long before he gave in. He stopped trying to fight her off and let his feelings for her take over. She was more than just his friend; in his heart, he knew that all too well. She pulled him by the hand up the stairs, their fingers again interlocked, and as the hurtled as one through his bedroom door, he wondered what the hell was going through her mind as she stripped him of his clothing. He had never known her walls to crumble so fast. He had never known her to kiss him, to hold him tight. Not only did he allow it, but he reciprocated it, holding her tight like he would never let go for fear of the woman he knew so well and had grown to love evaporating into nothing.

* * *

**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This isn't great but I'm tired and it's been annoying me because of the stress and exhaustion of today - it seems the damage one can do by putting an F2 car in the wall at eighty miles an hour is absolutely and annoyingly massive. **

**This story isn't about strength or weakness. It's more about what a human being will do with their back against the wall and their hand forced, and the fact that going it alone is never easy, and sometimes damn near impossible.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Jac stepped into the kitchen with a sigh, tired of putting up with Jonny's madness all the time. She understood his anger and why he was so hurt – he just didn't have to take it out on her through their daughter. Perfect was something she knew she could never even aspire to be, but she had found in herself the ability to be a mother, and she had refused to let him take that from her. It had resulted a messy and bitter war of words, schemes, law and love, especially when her own mother, Paula, had turned up out of the blue.

But it was over now. Jac had her daughter still, and she knew that was all that truly mattered. Jonny could hate her all he wanted but they both knew he was wrong to fight her for custody for Emma after Bonnie died. She just wished he would man up and live with it and stop sulking so much. After all, what good did it really do, for her, for himself or for Emma?

Her phone rang and she looked at the caller ID to ensure it wasn't Jonny; she wasn't in the mood for speaking to him first thing in the morning. To her surprise, it was Serena Campbell. How odd. "Jac Naylor," she answered briskly, climbing onto the kitchen counter to open the window and let some fresh air into the house. "What can I do for you at seven in the morning?"

"I need a favour," Serena breathed deeply, and Jac heard the breathing of another, perhaps asleep, in the background.

The fact Serena needed a favour at all made Jac suspicious; the woman never asked for anything but her freedom, her voice and her independence. "Go on," Jac told her while she climbed off the bunker.

"If anyone asks I spent the night at yours."

Jac let out a laugh. "Is that it?!"

"It isn't funny, Jac!"

"Oh dear," she chuckled as she touched Emma's head on the way to the kettle. "Who have you been shagging?"

"Nobody!" Serena retorted, but her tone was far too defensive for it to be true. "I'm serious!"

"OK, OK. But tell me who you really spent the night with." There was a silence, and Jac already had a feeling she knew who Serena Campbell was with on the eve of her birthday. She was in no position to judge her for it, since she had cheated on Jonny, but it was clear Serena had cheated on her boyfriend, and willingly so. "Serena, I'm worried about you," Jac admitted, spooning out coffee. "Cheating on your boyfriend, pushing everyone else out, pretending you're OK when I know you're not. It's not like you."

"Jac, stop playing games!" Serena ordered her. "I need to know that, should anyone ask, you'll vouch that reason I wasn't at my house was that I was at yours."

"It was Ric, wasn't it?" guessed Jac. "Why can't you just say that you crashed with him? He's your best friend. Nothing suspicious to anyone who's never met Ric, is it?"

"That's not the point!"

"Then what _is_ the point?" Jac grilled her for answers, trying to get out of her what was making her so reckless, so chaotic. Normally Serena was one of the most in control people Jac knew, but she had seen control slip away a good few times in recent weeks, and it was slightly worrying.

She heard Serena's bitter laugh; it almost frightened her. "Would _you_ want your boyfriend knowing you went to bed with another man?" Jac held her silence, knowing she was in no position to judge Serena for sleeping with Ric. She herself wasn't exactly a saint. "Exactly. I could say I slept on the sofa but who would believe me?"

Jac took a drink of her freshly made coffee, torn between amusement at Serena's tone and worry about why she slept with Ric in the first place. "Alright," she gave in. "If anyone asks me about where you were last night – including your man – I'll say you came home with me to see Emma and fell asleep on the sofa, OK?"

"Thank you, Jac," Serena sighed. "I don't even know why I did it."

"If you ever need to talk, Serena," Jac answered her gently, "you know where to find me. It's hard. I know it is. I might not like Ric much but I know you've sure got a hold on him. If you had to cheat with anyone, you cheated with the right guy." Jac heard Serena's silence and knew she had given the older woman something worth thinking over. Whatever kind of relationship Serena was in, when Jac really looked for how she felt, she saw that she was unhappy but pretending to be in total bliss. "But if you need someone, a woman, I'm here."

Serena sighed. "I know, Jac. Thank you. I've got to get ready for work so I'll maybe see you later."

"Yeah," Jac answered. "See you later." Jac hung up the phone and was left to wonder what was going on. Serena never was one for doing silly things like cheating on a partner; by all accounts, Edward had cheated on her, so why would she ever have done it herself? She sat down with her iPad and her coffee and gazed at her child, seeing Emma's smiling face across the corner of the table. "What's Serena doing, hmm?" she asked the baby. She didn't expect an answer, of course, but she found speaking to Emma therapeutic. "Is she being silly?" Emma giggled and Jac smiled despite knowing that what ever was wrong with Serena at the moment, it wasn't silliness.

* * *

After listening to Serena's conversation with Jac on the other side of the door, Ric heard her re-enter the room, gently closing the door behind her. They memory of last night flashed through his mind...the feel of Serena's body moving in rhythm with his, somehow knowing what to do with no indication from him. She had forced herself on him until he accepted her and resisted his caution. It wasn't that he didn't want her, because he did, but he was trying to do right by her.

He closed his eyes again when he felt Serena crawl back into bed, and he felt her face pressed into his back. He could have sworn he felt her tears against his skin but he said nothing. What could he say? He knew she had messed up – they both had. She had a boyfriend. Peter, if Ric recalled correctly. So why had Serena spent the night with him instead of her own partner? He could feel she was dressed in his shirt that had been left carelessly on the floor, and she kissed his shoulder gently. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "We've kicked the hornets' nest."

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget there was a reason Serena had done this, that there was a reason she seemed to have lost her strict sense of morality. She didn't do things like this, and he had known that but sensed that, for whatever reason, it was what she really did want. "You know, I wish it was you," she murmured. "I wish it was you I got involved with in the first place."

Ric opened his eyes, deciding to speak and stop her saying any more. "This won't change us," he told her gently. "You're still my best friend, Serena. You can still come to me with anything and I will do everything I can for you." He turned around and saw her stunned face, her hand falling to his side when he moved. "Why did you get Jac Naylor to lie for you? It's not like anyone would have thought this would happen. Why not just say you feel asleep at a friend's house?"

"Because he would go spare," she said, like it was totally obvious.

"Who would?"

"Peter. I mean, staying at a man's house overnight and claiming nothing happened? You really think that sounds right?"

"He doesn't trust you, does he?" Serena didn't reply but her face and her hands said it all as she looked down into his chest and moved her hand around to his back. It was slightly ironic that they spoke of Serena's relationship problems the morning after she had been unfaithful to the man, but her silence did not fool Ric. Something dark lay beneath everything she had done. Something haunted her in every way, right down to the way she moved with him.

Though it had been dark, he had felt her flinch when his hands had touched certain areas of her back and her waist, like she had been in pain. "Would you?" she challenged him.

"Yes," he said. "Because I _know_ this isn't you. I know you don't cheat on people. I know you." It raised a smile in her, and she seemed happy for just a moment as she leaned in and kissed him softly, her lips gentle against his. "Despite 'kicking the hornets' nest,' you don't regret it, do you?" he guessed. He could see in her that he was the place she was running to.

"No," she admitted gently. "But it can't happen again, and Peter can ever find out." That went without saying, but she had said so anyway, making her intention clear, and he couldn't help but feel this wasn't good for either of him. In the moment he had felt her release all her emotion to him, everything she hadn't been able to say, but in the long run he knew to cheat on a partner was not healthy, especially when it was someone like Serena Campbell doing the cheating.

He sighed and reached out for her hair, his fingers entangling themselves in her brown locks; she kissed him fearlessly, leaving him no choice but to kiss back with all his might. But he was compelled to push her away in the knowledge they had work and lives to get back to, but he would not be able to forget that last night had happened, or the feelings it had stirred in him. Serena was his friend, maybe his best friend, but she was more than that too. She was the first person he looked to when he needed someone, the one who forced him to see sense and think with his head and not his heart as he knew he had a tendency to do. She balanced him until he was level, and he might have messed his career up months ago if she hadn't ordered him to be a father rather than a doctor.

She seemed to accept now that he _had_ to go and help Jess. She was a parent too, and he knew she understood that instinct to protect his child, no matter how old she was.

"Serena," he said. "Tell me."

"What?"

"Tell me what's got into you."

Serena didn't answer him. Instead she got out of bed and picked her clothes off the floor and a towel from the rail on the radiator. Her silence screamed at him; there was something she was holding back, something her heart would not allow her to speak of, and he wanted to know.

By half past eight they were standing outside the hospital. Ric stared up at the building to the sixth floor, somehow glad that Jac had Serena's back. Ric might not have been all that fond of the fierce, cold redhead, but he knew when she was defending something, she could be like a Rottweiler just waiting to strike back at those who dared threaten what she protected. She had proved as much with Emma. At least Jac was ferocious.

"AAU or Keller?" he asked her gently.

"AAU. Guy's orders."

It didn't make Ric uncomfortable but he knew that it was going to be harder to keep the events of last night from bubbling to the surface when they were cooped up on AAU all day. "Happy birthday, by the way," he said to her as they stepped forward into the front entrance. "Not how I think you expected to start your birthday but still...happy birthday."

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Late. Long. Very late. Very long. Blame Brooke. That's all I am going to say.**

**As usual, thank you to all reading/reviewing.**

* * *

Ric watched as Serena shed her coat; he looked over the way her body moved, struck with the memory of the power with which she had backed him to the wall and forced him to relinquish control to her. In the end he had willingly done so, feeling her in his arms as she kissed him, as she undressed him.

He had made an attempt to fight her off not for his sake, but for hers. She was digging herself a hole he feared would end up too deep for her to crawl out of. "Serena," he said quietly. She froze for the smallest of moments before she resumed her routine of the morning, pretending she hadn't heard him. "Serena!" he said more forcefully. This time she stopped what she was doing and slowly turned to face him. Her face was pale, like the realisation of what she had done had only just really hit her.

"He's going to kill me," she whispered. "When he finds out, he'll kill me."

Ric stared at her, sure she was exaggerating, but there was something in her face that almost frightened him. It wasn't that she was as white as a sheet. It was like her eyes had taken on a darkness in them. Her eyes were always dark, of course, but this was projecting a change throughout her face, like she was trying to pretend nothing was wrong but failing miserably. He moved around the table and took the coffee cup from her shaking hand; he had never seen her this way, not even when her mother was ill or when Edward had messed her around. He reached out with one hand and closed the shutters so the whole of AAU could not see their consultants in this position.

He placed the cup on the desk and rested his hand on her arm. "Tell me," he ordered her once more. "Tell me what the hell is happening to you just now. Because this, cheating, lying, running and hiding, it isn't you, Serena."

When she stared him in the face, the intensity was terrifying, but so was that determination in her eyes; he saw then that she was determined not to tell him. "Nothing is wrong," Serena muttered. "Have I actually changed _that_ much?"

"Yes!" Ric emphatically informed her. "I have _never_ known you to do these things. I've never known you to push me out like you did last month. I've never known you to do anything to jeopardise your own relationship. You've never kissed me, let alone slept with me, and I could bet my right hand you've never cheated on your partner. You've changed and, quite frankly, I'm not sure I like it!"

Serena's mouth fell open. He expected her to argue back, to put him back in his corner, but she didn't. "Ric, I..." she began, but she said nothing more at that point. She just looked shocked and, if he didn't know her better, he would have said she was scared.

Just as he was about to speak the door opened and Raf''s head appeared. "Ms. Campbell, there's a Peter Graham-Brown is here to see you."

Serena let out a heavy sigh, a strange expression upon her frightened face. "Yes, I'll be out in a moment, Raf." The Scot nodded and closed the door behind him. When he was safely out of earshot, Serena rounded on Ric. "As far as he gets to know I went over to see Jac and Emma last night and I fell asleep, OK?"

He hated that she was lying her way through the day when she should have been celebrating, but he saw the necessity of it all. He saw that she needed to keep this secret. So he watched her pass him, feeling his hand drop from her arm. Standing in the doorway, he watched her approach a tall, slim man, who had black hair and blue eyes, who wore a charming smile and carried flowers in his hand. To Ric's reluctant amusement, the first thing that came out of Serena's mouth was, "You can't take flowers onto this ward."

She was in work mode, and by the look on his face, Peter hadn't been expecting that. Ric stepped out on the ward, walking past Serena so he could see her face and therefore what she was feeling. She didn't seem all that comfortable with the man's presence. She should have been comfortable, but she clearly wasn't at all. She was unhappy. To Ric, it was blindingly obvious, but she seemed to be able to hide it from most people. Nobody knew, nobody saw, and nobody knew but him.

"Come on, my love," Peter smiled. "It's only flowers!"  
"Either take them home and I will get them tonight," she sternly told him, "or I will have Nurse Carter bin them." The look on Peter's pale face was a picture, and Ric had to give a wry smile, but Serena's face showed the courage that one defiance took from her; Ric couldn't understand how or why being herself was so difficult the moment Peter showed up. "I mean it, Peter. I'm meant to keep this ward free of health hazards."

"Fine then," he said, and rather sulkily too.

Serena sighed and took the flowers from him, effectively pandering to him. "Mary-Claire, will you please put find a vase and put these in my office out of the way?" she asked of the young Irish nurse, who was standing listening to the whole scene unfolding before her, under the guise of doing something on the computer. Mary-Claire smiled and took the flowers from her, though Ric did notice the look of confusion on the young woman's face as she walked away. "Happy?" she asked Peter.

Peter smiled, his smirk arrogant, charming and even slightly vicious at the same time. Ric couldn't decide if he liked the man or not. He seemed harmless enough, though there was something about the effect he had on Serena he did not like. "Where were you this morning? I swung by to pick you up and you weren't there."

"Uh, yeah, I crashed at Jac's last night. Went round to see the baby and fell asleep on the sofa," Serena informed him, as if it were nothing.

"You stayed at a man's house last night?" Peter replied, his voice flat and his eyes dangerous as he got completely the wrong end of Serena's stick of lies. Ric had to smile, for this probably not the first time someone had assumed by her name only that Jac was a man. "What were you doing?"  
Adele intervened with a warm laugh. "No, no, no, mate," she chuckled. "Jac Naylor. As in 'Jacqueline?' She's the only other female consultant surgeon in the place."

Serena shot Adele a thankful look for her explanation that she had – allegedly – spent the night on a woman's couch and not another man's bed, even if that was indeed the case. Peter seemed to accept this theory and laughed, "Oh, _right_! Wrong end of the stick there, just for a moment." The look of relief upon Serena's face disturbed Ric; she was never one to tell outright lies and just hope she would be believed. She was the type to find the truth and make it sound like the truth was what exonerated her. She wasn't the kind of woman who did this though – of that, he was certain.

Only when Peter reached out and pulled her towards him and kissed her on the lips did Ric get a sense of who the man was. He was in charge. Such a man was usually at loggerheads with Serena, not in a relationship with her, and the uneasiness she felt with his actions, especially here on AAU, became clear when she looked around her and saw that nobody quite understood this change in her. Ric definitely didn't understand it anyway. Normally it was Serena who could have had the whole world under her thumb if she wanted it.

"So what is this Jac like then?" quizzed Peter.

"You really don't want to know," Serena deflected; Ric knew why. Jac was doing her a favour and pointing out al her many flaws wasn't going to endear her to the woman. Jac, unlike Serena, was very good at lying, and it was that flaw he knew Serena had to exploit at the moment. Peter smiled at her, but there was something in his face that told the world he was not satisfied with all he had been enlightened to. It wasn't clear whether or not he could see through her lies, but his smile was that of a snake about to strike for the jugular.

At that moment, Ric turned to see Jac Naylor stepping out of the lift. "Speak of the devil and she shall appear," smirked Ric. Serena looked around and it was almost with a look of utter relief that she beckoned Jac over.

Jac approached and stood next to Serena, almost protectively. It was odd, the way Jac was suddenly so clearly by Serena's side. All these observations made Ric wonder what the hell Jac had actually said to Serena, as he had only heard one side of the conversation this morning. "And who is this lovely man?" Jac asked, and only those who knew her recognised that deadly level in her voice.

"Ah, yes, meet Peter Graham-Brown, my...partner," Serena said hesitantly.

Jac held out her hand and Peter shook it, though it wasn't long before he was withdrawing it with a grimace of pain on his face. "That's some grip you've got there," he commented, flexing his hand with a wince. Ric had to suppress a smile with the knowledge that, already, Jac didn't like this man at all. She wouldn't have deliberately injured him if she liked him. Not that Jac Naylor actually liked very many people, but she seemed to actively dislike Peter, for whatever reason. "I hear Serena slept at yours last night."

"Yeah, I drove her to mine from the pub to see Emma and she was out like a light within a couple of hours." Jac's smile was vindictive, making Ric believe she enjoyed the discomfort she caused him as he stretched his fingers out in pain once more. "Um, Ric, GS consult, please? I think I know what's going on but I need a second opinion." Ric, taken by surprise at her request nonetheless followed her lead to the lift. He wasn't pleased about leaving Serena when she was sinking in her own lies, but he knew she was capable of looking after herself. She was a bright and charming woman, after all.

Once they were in the lift, Jac collared him. He should have known it was nothing medical. "What the bloody hell is going on?" she demanded. "Seven o'clock in the morning and I'm getting a call from Serena asking me to lie through my teeth and all I can get out of her is that she spent last night with you."

Ric groaned; he should have know Jac would corner him before lunchtime arrived. "I don't know how it happened," he admitted. Unimpressed by his answer, Jac glared at him with an eyebrow raised. After all, it didn't sound very plausible but it was what happened. He had tried to fight her off but she had been so determined that he was what she wanted, even if just for last night. "One minute we were in the back of a taxi and the next she was pulling me up the stairs. She was in control the whole time."

They stepped onto Darwin. "I don't get it," Jac confessed her confusion, throwing her hands exasperatedly in the air at her sides. "It's just not _Serena_. She just doesn't do that!"

"Well, she did!" Ric argued, his patience very much wearing thing. "_We_ did. I'm not proud of myself either, and I'm sure Serena is kicking herself. It's just one big mess and, Jac, you're the one holding it together. If not for my sake, then lie for Serena, because she's just losing herself."

He saw in Jac's face that she was seeing what he was, and she liked it about as much as he did. "What do we do?" sighed Jac.

"It's _him_," Ric said. "It's Peter. There's something wrong with him. I'm sure of it. You should have seen the look on her face when Raf told her he was here." Jac's face was suddenly thoughtful and less arrogant, and she was obviously conceiving a theory or a plan of action of her own. "If you're not actually needing me up here, I'll get back to AAU." Jac nodded and let him go, but as he got back in the lift he turned around to see a worried expression spread across her pale face.

When he got back to AAU, he went straight to his office. Despite his wish to do what he could to help ease whatever the situation was, he also didn't want to interfere and upset Serena, because she was obviously making the effort in everything. That was why he sat in his office, and it was only about five or ten minutes before the door opened and Serena slipped in, closing it gently behind her and leaning back against the wood with her eyes closed.

He left her to sort herself out, knowing even she would have been shaken by such a close call. "Do you know something?" she whispered, her eyes still closed. "When Raf came and told me he was here, I was terrified." She opened her eyes and looked directly at Ric. "You shouldn't be afraid of the person you're meant to love."

The words took Ric by the throat, his reply caught there when he realised there was someone mortal and living Serena Campbell actually held a great deal of fear for. She had never been really scared of Edward. Not really. Even Ric knew the only remotely frightening thing about Edward Campbell was his selfishness and his stupidity. But the fear in Serena's eyes was unmistakable. Ric could see now that the darkness he had seen in her was fear.

Instead of speaking, he got to his feet and made sure the shutters were closed. He gently put his hands on her arms, refusing to be afraid of her, and he felt a strength in her when their eyes met. He didn't say a word because he simply had no clue what to say here, but he knew now something was badly wrong. He should have seen it was more than she let on it was. She was his best friend, the woman who talked his heart into reasoning with her head, and she had a power to sway him that not many people possessed.

She tried to smile but it looked like she wanted to cry, like she was burying whatever she was feeling so she showed no weakness, but she didn't seem to realise that last night he had seen her downfall in her strength, that her need for control was her weakness, that he had seen her stripped of everything she tried to be and tried not to be.

He slowly and gently put his arms around her and pulled her close. He expected her to resist but she didn't. She hugged him tightly and he pressed a kiss into her hair. She wasn't weak, but she was scared. She was trying to be happy but she couldn't be with fear in her heart. She was trying with all her might to be OK but Ric, and Jac, could see she wasn't. Her hands moved suddenly to his front, her fingers light on his chest.

"Ric, you don't need to stand by me. I can stand on my own two feet."

Ric just sighed and hugged her once more, unable to bring himself to put distance between them after their mistake. She made that mistake for a reason, and he was beginning to understand there was something, someone, she was afraid of, and she was looking for something to remind her this old world wasn't the awful place it sometimes seemed to be. They both had seen too much in their lives, professionally and personally, and he didn't doubt they would witness many more things they would wish they had never been around for.

But here and now, the present being the one thing they could do nothing about, he knew she was, for whatever mad reason, was lost. He had never seen her like this before, not even after Edward's madness and its consequences. There was a strange despair in the way she held him, in the way she breathed slowly against his neck and let him just hold her tight. "Don't push me out, Serena," he whispered in her ear. "Don't push Jac out either. I know you're not OK. I know you're not happy."

"I know," she murmured. It was the first admission that happiness was evading her, that everything was not what it seemed. She finally confessed that her thinking wasn't normal and her reasons were perhaps not as rational as what they normally would have been. "I know you know." He pulled her tight and waited for her to continue, her arms wrapped around him and her fingers clawing at his jacket. "I know you know it's all wrong." She did nothing to move away from him, more comfortable with their current position than he himself was at ease with; her need to keep their distance seemed to have completely evaporated. "I don't want this. I don't want to go any further."

"Then don't," he urged her. "Put an end to it. Draw a line. Walk away."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't do that to him because I care about him."

"And don't you care about yourself?" he asked of her. He hated this; it was her birthday and, instead of celebrating, she was here hiding and hurting and feeling awful for her mistakes and her circumstances. "It's not fair on you."

"It'll be OK. How bad can it be?"

"Bad enough for you to cheat, lie and panic," he solemnly reminded her. Ric put Serena at arm's length and watched her face go through those changes, wondering how he knew. "Serena," he sighed. "You don't want me. You want a sanctuary away from it all."

"Don't _tell_ me what I want," she threw at him, leaving him taken aback at her aggression as he put his hands up in an apology. Slowly he reached out or her face, and she flinched slightly when his fingers made contact with her cheek. "I'm not a child. I'm not weak."

"I know that."

"I don't need you when I'm happy. I don't need you when I'm alright. I don't need you when I'm winning," asserted Serena, her tone one he didn't dare argue with. "I need you when I'm lost. I need you when I lose."

Those words, that admission that she was indeed losing, made Ric feel powerless. He couldn't help her. He couldn't see any way to deal with her when she didn't want to take actions to deal with herself. He was the weak one. He was the one with no power. He was the one with no control at all.

Serena was the one holding control. Serena was the one with power here. Serena was the one whose strength was making a bad situation worse.

He had nothing but she had control, and because he knew her so well, he knew that she felt having control meant she had everything she needed.

* * *

**Hope that's OK!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: The first part of this, the accident, actually happened to me at work, so there's the inspiration for that. As always, thanks to all who read and review.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Jac sighed as she carried Emma from the crèche; it had been a long day spent working and worrying, and trying to figure out what was going on with the infallible Serena Campbell. It was worrying that she was doing things Jac had never thought she would have done. After what happened in her marriage, cheating was the last thing Serena would have done – or so Jac had believed until today.

"Now should we go home and break out the ice cream," she asked her daughter at the lifts, "or should we stop by at Serena's and see how she is?" Emma just giggled, and Jac briefly wondered why she asked the girl's opinion when she clearly was too young to formulate one. It so happened, though, that she found it easier to make her own mind up when she spoke to her daughter. "Yeah, let's just go home. She'll be OK."

But as she approached her car, she noticed that the front driver's side tyre was completely flat; even she knew she couldn't drive it like that. It would only pull them off the road. She sighed and put Emma in her little seat and thought about phoning the AA. But it took her only a moment to work out she could probably have put the spare on by the time the AA even bothered to show up, and she could just take the car to the garage when she got the time.

She dug around in the back for a little while and found the wheel lock key, the breaker bar and the trolley jack, and figured it couldn't be all that difficult. There were garages full of halfwitted men doing it every day, so how difficult could it possibly be for a woman with Jac Naylor's degree of intelligence? She groaned internally and knelt down beside the wheel, fitting the locking key into position and proceeding to slacken it with ease, pushing down on the bar with her left hand. "Well, that was easy," she gratefully uttered.

Her relief was short-lived, however, when she tried to slacken the next one. "Ugh!" she groaned as she pushed down with all her might. "Rock bloody solid!" Her arms were momentarily exhausted by her efforts. She was built to be a surgeon, not a mechanic. After allowing herself a minute to regain her strength, she leaned forward and tried again, but it was definitely too tight for her body to force down. Why the locking nut was so much looser than the other was a mystery to her, but the fact remained that she had a flat tyre, the spare in the back one of five wheel nuts off and none of the physical strength required to remove the remaining four. And it annoyed her. It was something she couldn't do and it _really_ annoyed her.

She spotted the familiar figure of Serena Campbell making her way to her own car, and Jac called out, "Serena! Little help over here?!"

Relieved when Serena did turn around, obviously having heard her, Jac allowed herself the respite of leaning back against the body of the car. Serena smiled down on her and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Are you stronger than me?" Jac demanded. Serena shot her a puzzled and slightly defensive look so she elaborated, "Your arms. Are they stronger than mine? I can't slacken the wheel nuts and I need to change the offside front wheel."

A look of realisation spread upon Serena's face and she grinned, "All I know is that I am heavier than you so I can put more weight forward. Would you like me to try?" Jac breathed out in relief and stood up, handing her the breaker bar. Serena took it and handed Jac her handbag; she knelt down and put the bar onto the nut next to the locking nut, and Jac watched her push down with more strength than she had been able to summon, and she could see the bar bending ever so slightly as it struggled between a solid nut and Serena's efforts. "Good Lord!" Serena exclaimed. "What does your mechanic use to tighten these things?!"

"I'm sure I saw him with an electric gun when he was finishing the timing belt," Jac admitted, having seen the guy working on her car with some kind of red gun with a socket on the end.

"Well, tell him to bloody well stop it!" Serena ordered her with a groan. Jac sensed her losing her patience as she pushed up and down on the bar, probably trying to shock the nut out of place. "Come on!" she half-shouted. At that moment, something slipped. The bar shot out of her hand and Jac could only watch as Serena went face first into the car door. "Argh!" she yelled. "For the love of God!"

Jac dropped the handbag and went to Serena, who turned with a hand over the top right hand side of her face. Jac took it away and already the area around her eyebrow and around her eye and cheekbone was beginning to show the first swelling of a bruise forming. Serena stared Jac in the face and, much to her amazement, started to laugh gently. Though surprised, Jac joined in, glad to see her actually smile and laugh, even at the woman's own expense.

"Do you know what?" Serena said, standing up and taking the bar in her hands. "I've got a better idea. Stand behind me in case I fall." Jac cautiously obeyed, not wanting Serena to injure herself any further trying to help with the car, and Serena stood at the side of the bar. She put her foot on it and stamped down a few times, standing on it and practically jumping on it until it began to give with a slight squeaking sound. The same approach worked with the remaining three and Jac managed to jack it up and get the wheel off while Serena brought around the spare for her.

By the time it was on the ground and the spare was ready to be tightened, the original alloy in its place in the boot, Jac turned to Serena hesitantly. "Um, would you mind doing the tightening, since you do seem to be stronger than me?"

Serena just smiled and took the bar and the locking wheel nut key from her, tightening the nuts as much as she could and probably more than Jac could have achieved.

With the tools back in the boot and the car safe to drive, Jac said to Serena, "Thanks for that. And get some ice on that eye of yours," she added with a nod to Serena's face.

"It's not a problem," she replied. "And, yes, I will. And you tell that mechanic of yours to go easy on the gun." Jac laughed, and Serena smiled slightly. "Goodnight, Jac."

"Goodnight," she answered. Serena walked away and Jac suddenly recalled there was something she had forgotten to say. "Happy birthday, Serena," she shouted across the car park, knowing she had heard when the older woman looked up and nodded as she locked her car with the slightest and most tainted of smiles.

* * *

Ric sighed when he reached Keller, needing to speak to Serena about matters on AAU as they became more and more hectic. He knocked on the door to her office and walked in, and saw Sacha with his head in a file and Serena staring at the computer screen, a tense yet companionable and caring silence between them. "Serena, I'm in need of another pair of hands on AAU. Four car pile up on the outer rounda- what the hell happened to you?!" he demanded, cut off from his train of thought when Serena turned and he saw the state of her face.

A purple bruise had formed around her eye, on her cheekbone and brow bone. "Accident with Jac Naylor's car. It seems her mechanic has a love for overtightening wheel nuts with electric guns," she drawled, picking up a file. Sacha peeked over the top of his like he was waiting for a war of epic proportions to kick off. "Now, you were saying about AAU?"

"I need some help," he quickly told her. "What do you mean, there was an accident with Jac's car?"

Serena sighed and turned to fully face him, letting him see the full extent of the damage done to her face. Ric's first thought was that Peter had come a slap off her last night. Part of him still believed that, and that this story with Jac's car was just an elaborate cover story. "Jac had a flat tyre and was struggling with the wheel nuts, trying to put the spare on. She asked me to give it a go and I did but it was far, far too tight and the bar slipped. I shot forwards and my face hit the door."

Ric exchanged a glance with Sacha, who clearly had his doubts. "Are you sure, Serena?"

"Perfectly sure. Ask Jac if you don't believe me."

"Would she tell me the truth?"

"Oh, for crying out loud, Ric!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Go and look at her car! The spare is still on the front driver's side!" Ric, still unconvinced, stepped forwards and bent over her, feeling the swelling and bruising on her face, feeling that it was no light little smack she had taken to cause it. "I'm _fine_!" she growled.

Sacha sighed and dropped his file down onto the desk. "To be quite fair, Serena, this isn't the first injury you've had recently," he reminded her, and Ric nodded in agreement. "First you come in with a severely sprained ankle and now your face is black and blue." Ric watched Serena glare Sacha back into his corner, and he wished she wouldn't. He wished she would just accept that there were people on the planet who cared enough about her to be deeply concerned for her. "You can't blame us for being a little sceptical," Sacha bravely continued. He continued where lesser men would have run away, and Ric had to respect him for that little bit of courage for the sake of another human being.

"I promise you," Serena insisted, "that it's perfectly benign. If you want someone to blame, blame Jac's mechanic and his little power toys."

Sacha stood up and left, clearly sensing Ric's need to spend some time alone with Serena. He didn't miss the teaching doctor's dark look as he left; Ric didn't doubt that, after spending half the day cooped up with an injured Serena, he was at his wit's end trying to keep an open mind about how she sustained that injury.

Ric took Serena by the hands and helped her to her feet. Her face wasn't the only part of her body that was in pain, and he could tell only because of the way she stood opposite him. "Please, Serena, just tell me what really happened."

She just let out a laugh, sweet and impatient. "That _is_ what happened!"

"It just sounds like you're covering up the truth," he admitted gently.

"Don't you trust me?" she challenged him, hostility creeping into her tone and into her eyes. "You don't, do you?"

Ric sighed. "It's not you I don't trust, Serena," he softly told her. "I just don't want to see you get hurt." His hands fell onto her arms, and he noticed the flinch it induced in her. He was tempted to take her shirt off just to see what lay under his hands, but he wasn't sure he wanted to see. "I hate this," he murmured as the gap between them closed. "I hate the way things are."

Gently he leaned his forehead against hers, feeling that deep attraction once more. He didn't want to complicate matters for either of them but the knowledge that Serena was unhappy, that she was suffering in one way or another, made him want to hold her tight and never let her go. "It is what it is," came her answer. She made it sound so simple and final.

All the simplicity in the air evaporated when she pressed her lips into his, willing to let him in and willing to betray the one she hid from. He could feel her soft hands on his face as they kissed, and he reached up for her wrists to sever their contact when he pulled away. "We can't," he told her.

The reply he received was hopeless and flat, like she couldn't see any light left in her world or in the people she knew or in the situations she found herself in.

"I know."

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: This comes after a bit of a crap day. But anyway - any typing errors are probably down to one handed typing because of nosebleeds, so I apologise.**

**Thanks as always to all who read and review.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Ric sighed as Serena walked onto AAU – he had requested an extra pair of hands, but not hers. Dom, Zosia or Arthur's presence for an afternoon would have sufficed. But she was here now and there was no stopping her. He watched her explain away her injuries with ease; Ric had spoke to Jac already, who had sworn on Emma's life that she had witnessed Serena hit her face off the side of her car. Jac Naylor did not bet her daughter's life if she was not telling the truth, and so Ric had, with reluctance, accepted the story as the truth.

The doors opened as Raf and Harry wheeled in a bed, presumably a last-minute transfer from an overrun ED. The woman in the bed was fairly young, maybe about thirty, her red curls sprawled across a pillow. She was smiling but she was injured, her chest clearly bruised and her right arm lying in a flat position, unused, while she gestured with her left, making a joke with Harry. "This is Stevie Thompson, thirty-three," Raf said. "Query broken wrist and ribs and suspected risk of internal bleeding."

"OK," Serena immediately dived in. "Do we know what's caused all this?"

"She says she fell off her moped in the driveway but paramedics-" Raf began before he was cut off by Harry's laughter. "Do you mind?!" he snapped at the younger doctor, who raised his hands up and smirked at Stevie. "But paramedics found her crouched on the kitchen floor and the bike was parked under the shelter," he finished when Harry shut up. As Harry and Serena took her to the end corner of the ward, Raf pulled Ric aside, much to his surprise. "Mr. Griffin, I know we shouldn't make assumptions but that doesn't look like any moped fall I've ever seen, and I've seen a _lot_ of people come off their bikes."

Ric smiled sadly, already understanding what Raf meant. It was no accident. With those injuries, the pain involved to park a bike and move indoors would have been intense. Almost unbearable. She wasn't a big girl either. About five foot three, about eight stone, he would have guessed. Injured she would have had a hard job parking that bike. "What are you thinking?" he sighed.

"I don't know," Raf admitted. "Attack? Argument gone bad? Abusive partner?"

"Was there anyone else at the scene?"

"Paramedics say it was just her and the dog."

"OK, thanks, Raf," Ric smiled slightly, taking the case file from the Scot before he went over to join Harry and Serena. "Dr. Tressler, would you see to Mrs. Carter in bed three, please?" Harry smiled at Stevie and wandered away to Mrs. Carter. "So, Stevie, how did this happen?"

"Like the Scottish boy said, I fell off my bike," she smiled. She didn't seem very much bothered by the pain, almost like the combination of medication and resolve was masking and dulling it for her. "Just patch me up and I'm good to go."

Ric watched Serena's face change, and he saw the same thing in both women's faces at the very same moment. Fear. "Stevie, we both know that wasn't an accident," Serena quietly said. "Little girl like you couldn't have put that bike back upright in this state. Who called the ambulance?"

"Me," answered Stevie. "I don't think I've ever broken any bones before. Fell off a good few times. Never actually broke anything."

"Stevie, please," Serena said. "Tell us what happened." Ric could only look on, not really sure what he should do. He saw the connection between them, the understanding that the other could empathise. "I'm a doctor. I know a beating when I see one." Stevie's emerald green eyes met the dark depths of Serena's, a guard rising between them. "We can treat you better if we know exactly what happened to you."

Stevie looked to Ric for help, possibly to tell Serena to back off, but he was on Serena's side here. It was true that injuries were better treated when the physician knew how they were sustained, and it was in his patient's best interests to let Serena get to the bottom of it all. "Ms. Campbell, it's complicated, OK?"

"I know it must be complicated," Serena allowed. "You wouldn't be in hospital if it weren't complicated. Who did this to you?"

Ric saw Stevie's face turn to stone as she stared forwards, looking anywhere but at her doctors, obviously trying to avoid telling the truth. "You're obviously a strong girl," Ric began gently, glancing at Serena as he added, "but if you need help, there's no shame or weakness in asking for it."

He looked up at Serena and caught her staring at him, the defence gone from her eyes and her bruised face softer than he had seen it in months. "My husband," Stevie whispered. "I pushed him that one step too far and he snapped." Serena's hand reached out to Stevie's shoulder.

"Does he 'snap' often?" Serena asked softly. Her tone was gentle, maternal, caring. In silence, staring at the white bed sheets, Stevie nodded and Ric looked on as Serena took the situation into her compassionate hands. "Monthly, weekly..."

"Every few days," the young woman admitted. "He doesn't have to lift his hands to hurt me sometimes."

"He knows just where to poke that sharp stick," sighed Serena. Stevie nodded, tears streaming down her face, and Ric saw Serena's face drain a haunted white, making the bruises stand out even more. Serena huffed slightly and pulled the curtain around, nodding to Ric to pull around the other side, leaving them isolated from the rest of the ward.

"Would you like us to inform the police?" asked Ric, remembering what Jess had gone through at David's hands. He hated that a strong woman could be permanently damaged by a man so weak he could not control his temper, so weak that he transferred his own lack of self-restraint onto someone else, controlling them instead.

Stevie let out a soft and bitter laugh. "He would kill me."

"Not if the police have him," Ric argued. "Look at what he's done to you. Do you think any police officer in their right mind would let him anywhere near you?"

Stevie looked up at Serena, like she was looking for advice from an older, wiser woman. Serena's expression, her sad smile, said it all. That little sad smile seemed to be what broke Stevie's resolve, and the young redhead burst into tears. "Shh," Serena hushed her. "Come here," she sighed, gently hugging Stevie into her chest as she wept. Ric could see the toll it took on Serena to see a woman breaking, and he could see that Serena's own resolve was beginning to crack. It was the only reason she would have allowed silent tears to fall down her cheeks, pressing her bruised face into Stevie's curly hair. "Shh. It'll be OK."

"You don't know that," Stevie protested. "You don't know how hard it is to take the blows, knowing it would be even harder to walk away. I can't win!"

Serena closed her eyes, and Ric reached out his hand resting on his best friend's arm. "I do know, Stevie," she said. "I know. I know how you feel. Trapped. Confused. Defeated. Back against the wall, heart in your mouth, eyes closed, wait for him to get it out of his system. I know." She opened her eyes and Ric stared at her, feeling his heart break a little at the realisation of how Serena had felt at the hands of another. Was Peter to Serena what David had been to Jess, what this young woman's husband was to her? A nightmare?

He leaned over and kissed Serena's temple, silently telling her he was there whenever she decided it was time. "What do I do?" Stevie demanded.

"You let us contact the police. You let the police do their job. You let your husband face the consequences of the way he's treating you," Ric said. He could just about see Stevie nod into Serena's chest. "Is there anyone you want us to call for you?"

"My sister, Jenny," she replied. "Her number's in my phone."

"She's listed as her next of kin," Serena said, her voice cracking slightly. "Her number will be on file." Ric nodded and left them to it, knowing his patient was in the best of hands. When he reached the nurses' station, he felt emotionally drained. Was that what Serena was going through? Was that what she kept inside when she kissed him, when she had pulled him into the bedroom despite his insistence that it was wrong of them?

He picked up the phone and saw Raf approach at his side. "Get anywhere with Stevie?"

"Abusive partner," Ric said.

"And Ms. Campbell? Is she OK? That's some bump on her face."

"Accident with Jac Naylor's car," Ric informed him. "Long story." Despite himself, Raf laughed slightly. If only he knew what lay beneath, what happened the other times Serena was lost or hurt. This was the one time it was genuinely accidental, if Ric's suspicions were correct. "Ah, yes, is this Jenny Matthews?" he asked when a woman picked up the phone, bracing himself to tell her that her sister was on an Acute Admissions Unit.

It was half-past five when the ward eventually calmed down enough for Ric to be able to stand at his office window and watch as the police spoke to Stevie Thompson, Jenny holding her uninjured hand tightly and wiping away her own tears as her sister recounted the consequences of her husband's temper.

The door opened and Serena stepped in, leaning against the wood after she shut it behind her. "What a day," she groaned. "That poor girl. She doesn't deserve someone kicking her to the dirt all the time."

Ric stared at her, shocked that she could say that and still defend her own position and her own inactions. "And you do?" he softly challenged her. She bit her lips when she turned to face him, her heart and her head fighting it out, using her eyes as a battlefield. He could see every emotion flash through that darkness as she thought about his words and what he was trying to say. Her slight smile was hopeless.

"Maybe," she admitted.

"That's not you saying that," said Ric. "You _know_ you deserve better than this."

"Better than what?" she flatly asked, still trying to pretend it was all alright. Ric stepped forward and gently pulled her shirt off her arms. He was faced with finger shaped bruises where she had been gripped with such force as to leave a mark on her. He looked into her eyes and immediately wished he hadn't, because he saw the beginnings of tears forming. "Ric..." she whispered. "Please..."

"_Serena_," he firmly stopped her deflections. "I know this is the tip of the iceberg."

She pulled the red shirt back over her shoulders and hid the damage done to her body. "I _will_ be OK. I always am." The pretence between them, just for a moment, slipped, but that moment cost Ric his own control, and he found a lump in his throat as he hurt for a woman he loved in so many different ways, who was so many things to him. He hurt for the fact that she couldn't let him in. He hurt for the fact there was someone making her so distant and so upset inside and unable to let it out. The tears suddenly spilled onto his cheeks as he realised the seriousness of her position and the contempt with which she seemed to view it. "Please don't cry," she said. "Oh, Ric," she sighed as he hastily wiped away his tears.

What was he doing, crying in front of her? He was supposed to be unbreakable for her when she eventually accepted she needed to do something. He couldn't force her to do it; she had to do it off her own back if she was going to do it at all.

He felt her arms wrap around him, comforting him while he tried to reign in his emotions. It wasn't that he was crying for her. He was crying _because_ of her. It was because of her inaction, her pain, her strength of will and mind, that he hurt, because he could do nothing.

* * *

**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to drop a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This was meant to be done yesterday but there was a bit of, um, well, let's just not go there. I'm not entirely happy with it but I'm uploading it anyway.**

**As always, thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Ric got home at about half past seven that night, having stayed an extra while at work to catch up on formalities. He had also stayed to observe Serena's behaviour until she had gone home herself, just over an hour before he had. He picked the mail up off the floor to find it was mostly junk mail and dumped it on the kitchen counter. "Brilliant," he sighed, seeing that he had forgotten to put the dishwasher on this morning. He threw in a tablet and kicked the door closed, pressing the button before he took his coat off.

He let his mind wander to Serena and the image of her bruises; while he accepted her facial injuries were the result of an unfortunate accident, he could not find an excuse for the marks on her arms. He knew there were probably far worse under the rest of her clothes, though she had not allowed him to see her skin very clearly. She had made sure the lights were kept off.

Her face when she had spoken to Stevie about living and loving with her back to the wall haunted him slightly. She had drained white and ghostly, the shell of the woman he knew so well. He was starting to realise the depth with which he felt for her. One stolen kiss they should not have shared had reminded him that she really did mean so many things to him, good and bad. She represented stubbornness and determination, how to love and how to hate, and what it was to be flawed, and yet he still held her dear to his heart. She was strength and weakness in one entity, because her strength was her weakness and her weakness was her strength. She was what it was to be maddeningly complex and yet so simple to succumb to.

Her heart was fierce even if it was currently taking a beating, and he admired her courage if she was managing to cope with all her issues as well as she seemed to be. But Serena's appearances could be deceptive; he had learned that the hard way. She never had been one for letting the world see what lay beneath her charm. How she was so different to her mother was a mystery to him and, though she insisted she inherited Adrienne's good nature, Ric rarely got to see it for himself.

He set about making dinner, unable to make his mind leave Serena alone; he cared too much about her. He cared more than he had a right to. She was in pain. She hid it but still he saw it.

A knock at the door startled him, and he closed the cupboard and went to answer it. He opened the door and found Serena standing there. "I left my other phone here the other night. I only just noticed." Her voice was rigid, robotic, like she was trying not to feel something.

"Come in," he invited, stepping aside for her. Silently she walked in, moving slowly and carefully, clearly in some degree of pain. She seemed determined that things would not be put into the open, but Ric wasn't sure he could let it go anymore. "Serena," he said. He took her hand in his to stop her moving; she froze, seemingly against her will. "What's happened?"

She wouldn't look at him when she said, "I'm just going to go up and get my phone."

"Why do you have two phones?" he demanded. She shrugged her shoulders and forced her hand away from him. "Serena!" he called after her as she started to climb the stairs. He followed her; she had been right before. He didn't trust her. How could he when all she ever seemed to do was lie? She didn't lie out of malice, but Ric saw her scrambling to protect herself. "Just stop! Serena!"

He caught up with her once she reached the bedroom. She picked up a little Nokia phone he hadn't even noticed until now and turned to leave, but he stopped her with his hands on her arms. She winced slightly at his touch, sending alarm bells ringing in his head. "Ric, just let me go home."

"Why?"

"Because home is where I need to be. _Now_."

"Phone him and say you've been called to work." She opened her mouth to argue but he stared her down. He had had enough of this, watching her run circles around herself as she attempted to cover up what was going on. She sighed and texted away on her normal phone, the touchscreen one, which confused Ric to no end. One phone was confusing enough without a second device. She put both phones in her coat pocket and stared at him in silence. "Just...stop running around." He guided her to the bed and said, "Sit at peace for a few minutes."

It was with obvious reluctance that she sat down on the bed; he sat next to her and put his hand on her leg. There was no tension between them now. All there that lay in the air between them was friendship and defeat. She was staring at the floor, looking like she wanted it to swallow her up because she didn't want to go there. "You care too much," she accused. "One of these days, it'll get you hurt."

"Show me," he said. Her head snapped up and she glared at him. "I know he's hurt you tonight."

"There's nothing to see," she whispered to him. Her eyes were almost pleading with him to leave it all alone, but he was done with that. He was done with pretending everything was OK and what he could see on the surface was all that existed within her. "Look, I know you care. I know you feel this misguided need to protect me. But I can handle it."

"Just let me try," he insisted. He reached out and took her to her feet, telling her without words to take off her coat and shirt. She slowly took off her coat but she stopped, frozen with fear. Ric found himself reaching out his hand and unbuttoning her shirt; he noticed now that she rarely buttoned her shirt up, and it dawned on him she had done so now for a reason – to stop it slipping off her shoulders. He took the pink shirt into his hands and laid in folded on the bed before he took the grey top by its hem and gently pulled it over her head.

Her pale skin was marred with the purple and yellow of bruises, both fresh and fading, and the sight made him furious. Not with her, but with the man who did this to her. He turned her around and saw the marks where, literally, her back had been against the wall. On her front there were bruises on her chest, like the heel of his hand had been dug into her skin. "Serena," he murmured. "Your body's a real mess."

He turned her around and she seemed to open up, knowing he had seen what was happening. She, more willingly, unbuttoned her trousers and pulled them down, leaving her in her underwear, only to reveal bruises on her shins and on her knees. He wasn't hitting her in the face but he was hitting every other part of her body in the knowledge it could be covered with clothing. "Everything hurts," she admitted. "My whole body hurts."

"It's little wonder," he retorted.

"He just..." she began. "He just loses it. One minute he's fine and we're doing brilliantly and then he goes in a mood and there's nothing I can do to stop him. You've seen how much bigger than me he is. How am I meant to fight him off?!"

"You shouldn't have to!" Ric pointed out. "It's scary how much of a flip side there must be, Serena. To the rest of the world he's polite and well-mannered, and clearly well-educated, and yet he does this to you behind closed doors!"

She stared at him, her eyes shining with tears. As much as it broke his heart, he wished she would just let it out. What good did it do her to keep it all inside? "I'm so sorry," she said.

"Sorry?" he laughed incredulously. "What have you got to be sorry for? You're not the one beating your partner up!" The words seemed to break down her barriers, and, as she stood there in her underwear, he saw a glimpse of how desperate she was to escape. Thanks to Jess, he no knew it would not be easy or simple for her. The hold Peter had on her would still remain until she built the courage to end the whole thing. "You've got nothing to apologise for. You're not the one doing the abusing. You're the one _taking_ the abuse."

Serena's hand came to her mouth as she muffled her pain, finally letting him see how much this upset her. He stepped forward and took her into his arms, wishing he took take the pain from her and feel it himself so she wouldn't have to. He felt her crying, her tears running down his neck as she held herself close to him, the only man she seemed to trust. He could only put his arm around her neck and hold her tight, because nothing he could say would change the way she was feeling. How could he fix her pain when he couldn't be the one to remove the cause? She had to do it for herself, if the ordeal with Jess was anything to go by. He had risked his own career and Jess and his grandson's safety by involving himself so deeply. He knew better now.

Her skin was warm against his hands, and he felt tears stinging his own eyes as she cried her heart out. She was right – he cared too much. Her pain was hurting him. He wanted the best for her but knew it was not nearly that simple. And now that he was really thinking about it, he wouldn't have cared so much that it hurt if, deep down, he didn't love her to pieces. And he did love her. He understood that now that she was here and falling apart at the seams.

He let himself cry with her. What else could he do? If nothing else, it let her know that he cared for her. "Even if you can't find your way yet, just know that I'm always here for you," he told her, hearing that his voice was thick with tears. "Whenever you need me, I'm here. OK?"

She nodded into his neck and he squeezed her close to him, careful not to aggravate her injuries. "I need to get dressed," she informed him gently, and he understood suddenly that she was more self-conscious than he had realised until now. He let her go and handed her the clothes, and she dressed as hastily as she possibly could. "Ric, would you mind if I stayed for a while? I need a break. A proper break. Peter thinks I'm working and I've switched my phone off."

"What about the other one?"

"He doesn't know about the other phone," she confessed gently. So it wasn't just a bad temper and physical beatings. It was control as well. The fact Serena had to have a secret phone was completely wrong, and the whole situation made his blood boil. Of course, he was careful not to let her see his anger, because she had enough to deal with now.

Instead, he gave her a warm smile and softly touched her face. "Of course you can. I was just about to make something to eat."

She wiped her eyes, removing the last of her tears, and said, "I'll come and help you. I just need to deal with this mess," she added, pointing to her face. He nodded and watched her walk away to the bathroom, knowing this was only the beginning. It was only the beginning for him, but he hoped it was the beginning of the end for Serena's ordeal.

He loved her. He understood that now. He'd never been taught this but he had learned something new – it hurt like hell to love someone who was fatally kicked to the ground by another, because it was almost impossible to help them to their feet until they decided to stand themselves. And he knew Serena would stand when she was ready, but she needed the time and the love to believe that she could do it. But she could do it. She wouldn't be Serena Campbell if she couldn't.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to drop a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Sorry this took a while to upload. Computer problems.**

**Thanks, as always to everyone reading and reviewing.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena stared at her reflection in Ric's mirror as she wiped away her smudged make up and the back and grey tear stains from her cheeks. She ignored the bruise; it was insignificant, since it was the result of a clumsy accident caused by an unknown mechanic. Crying in front of Ric was something she had wanted to avoid, since she very much wanted him to respect her rather than feel sorry for her. But she noted something when she sobbed in his arms – he had been crying too. She had heard it in his voice, and it hit her suddenly, that moment as he hugged her close, that he cared for her in a way deeper than she had ever thought he did.

She wished she could stay here, forever in his company. He was everything she cherished most. He was her best friend. He was the one she turned to. He was the one she was always going to seek comfort in. He was everything Peter wasn't. She had thought she'd made a big enough mistake with Edward – twice – but he had never laid a finger on her, or acted with the intent to truly hurt her. He was just stupid and selfish, and therein lay the difference.

Peter was a mistake because he was easy to love and difficult to survive. It was easy to love him because she felt sorry for him; how could she not feel pity for a man who could not control his fists? But with Ric, she didn't love him like that. She loved him just because she loved him, and that was always the way it had been. Even at war there had been this line they walked, where they loved one another and yet fought one another at the same time.

Her face pale and free of make up, she tried to smile, feeling the chains around her loosen just a little bit in the knowledge the man downstairs would never even think about hitting her. She straightened her top, feeling the ache of her bruised body when she moved, and stared into her own eyes, seeing only that she was close to the brink of destruction.

So on the brink of destruction she stood, for she could not move forward and she could not go back, stuck in a limbo between who she was and who she was forced to be. It was what it was, and this was what she had to do – be strong, or else pretend to be strong. Wasn't it just the same thing if the world believed she was alive and well?

With a great deal of caution, she opened the bathroom door and was startled to find Ric was not downstairs, but standing there waiting for her. How odd, that he was still there. He looked like there was something he wanted to say but was unsure that he should. "Spit it out, Ric, before it gags you," she sighed.

He opened his mouth but closed it again, obviously second guessing himself. Instead of speaking, he held out his hand; she tentatively let her hand fall into his, conscious that there was nothing to disguise the emotion that would inevitably seep into her face. She let her hand relax into his, their fingers winding together. This was why she shouldn't have come here. She felt so much of an instinctual pull towards him that it almost scared her.

His fingers touched the uninjured side of her face, and it reminded her what she had begun to forget: that to be touched was not to be struck. She wanted to lean in and kiss him, to remind herself of what love was, but she knew she couldn't. But she did anyway. She just wanted him more than anything in that moment, and she didn't have the willpower to resist at the moment. Her lips brushed against his, and she curled her arm around her neck, pulling him close. She had control here. Her back wasn't against the wall. She was an equal.

She felt him respond, opening her mouth to him and letting their tongues find each other. She could smell him so clearly; the smell of aftershave and the faint scent of the cleanliness of the ward overcame her. There was something in his touch, something so soft and so loving, that she had forgotten.

But then she remembered what she was doing. She remembered that feeling of terror she had experienced on her birthday, petrified that Peter was going to find out. She wasn't sure she could feel that again. "Ric," she softly moaned, "we need to..." She ended up kissing him harder, trying to make herself pull away from his warmth. "We need to stop," she finally managed to say. They pulled away from one another but came together again, and Serena just let her cheek rest against Ric's, revelling in the intimacy and the love.

She closed her eyes and imagined how her life would have been if she had made her stand for Ric earlier. She never would have met Peter, probably. She never would have landed herself in Edward's arms. She could have been happy. "You need to eat, Serena," Ric told her. "I know you're not eating," he accused gently.

"How do you know?" she demanded into his ear, wrapping her arm around his body. She was disheartened to admit to herself that he was right. Maybe not consciously, but she had stopped eating when she felt control stripped away from her. It was one of the few things that she totally controlled.

"I can just see it," he vaguely explained. "I know you better than you think, Serena." She felt his arm wrap around her as she felt her heart breaking inside her. How did she end up here? How did she end up in this state, black and blue and backed into a corner? "Come on," she heard him whisper. "We'll go and get something to eat."

She nodded against his cheek, feeling him give her a gentle squeeze. He was being so kind and she didn't deserve it; she had made him cry twice in one day. "I'm sorry for upsetting you," she murmured. "I didn't mean to."

"I'm not upset at you," he contradicted her way of thinking. "I'm upset because I hate seeing you like this." She felt him kiss her jaw lightly, sinking his face into her neck; she wanted to stay here forever and ever, in love with the feeling of respect and care in his arms. "I'm upset because you are my best friend, and there's nothing I can do to stop you suffering."

She sighed. "There is something you can do," she admitted. "Have you ever seen 'Garfield,' Ric?" she asked him.

"Yes. I watched it with Jacob."

"'Love me, feed me, never leave me.'" She heard his warm, deep chuckle, and it brought a smile to her face. She allowed a tiny laugh escape her, somewhat happy that he was happier. "Speaking of feeding me, weren't you telling me off for not eating enough?"

Their hands joined, they went downstairs. There was no urgency or rush, just them. She felt him so close to her, and yet there was a distance between them, like they were both shouting and neither one could hear what the other was saying. It was maddening. There wasn't much she couldn't tell him, but this was one of those things. It was something she found painful to think of, never mind to speak of, and she struggled to see how letting her relationship with Ric change was going to help her with her problems with Peter. All she knew was Ric was here, and he was trying to be strong for her. She didn't know why, but there was this flood of warmth and love for him. He squeezed her hand when they reached the kitchen, and they both looked around at the effort it would take to make a meal.

"Fancy a pizza?" Serena suggested, unimpressed when she realised she would have to help cook, and that it was more effort than she had left in her. He grinned at her and took out his phone. "Pizza place stored in your phone. You do surprise me, Mr. Griffin," she remarked.

When he started speaking to the person on the line, it was with a smile. "Could you deliver a Hawaiian and a pepperoni pizza?" he asked. He paused for a moment before he said, "Ric Griffin." Another pause, then, "Yes, that's the right address. Thank you."

When he hung up, Serena was a little bit stunned. "How did you know what to order?"

He shrugged his shoulders and replied, "I just know you." Standing alone with Ric in the kitchen, it hit her that here was the only place she wanted to be. The magnitude of her mistakes dawned on her, and she didn't know what to do.

She turned to face him and stared into his face. What if she did start something with him? Would it be enough? Would to love him be enough for her? Or would it slowly break them every time she had to go back to Peter? Would it destroy their hearts until they could no longer bear one another's presence?

"You know me," she repeated his reason carefully. "Do you want me?" she whispered.

"We can't, Serena," he said. It felt like they had said it a million times, but it never sunk in, perhaps because she just didn't want it to be true. "What if Peter finds out?"

"He won't."

"_What_ if he does?" Ric insisted on addressing that problem.

"Then we deal with it."

"You're consciously cheating, Serena," he reminded her. "It's not that I don't want you. Believe me, I do. But I know what could happen, and I know you're hurting but you could just be making it harder on yourself."

She walked away from him, wandering aimlessly until she found herself sitting on the sofa, and she wondered why this was happening. What had she done that was so awful that she deserved what Peter did to her? The fear that overwhelmed her were worse than the blows themselves. Without the fear, it meant nothing. She couldn't work out what was meant to be happening. What was it she was meant to do? Logic told her to walk away but her heart wanted to love Ric and placate Peter.

She couldn't just leave Peter. The thought of his reaction was enough to remind her that she couldn't. She felt the weight of it pulling her down, but she couldn't push it off. She couldn't take the noose off her neck.

Ric sat down next to her, and she was surprised when his hand fell onto her thigh. "It's not wise," he asserted, his voice gentle. "But it's what we both want, isn't it?" Serena looked up and their gaze connected, making her realise everything she was and everything she wanted.

She sighed and allowed her hand to fall onto his. "It's never going to be simple. Actually, it would be horrendously complex. But it's bound to happen sooner or later."

Ric's fingers reached for her face; she managed to control the flinch when it came, reminding herself who it was who touched her. "Kiss me," she whispered. He hesitated, and she knew it was because he knew what they were doing. Deep down, she knew it too. Deep down, she knew they were digging themselves a hole, but at least they were digging together. When Ric finally leaned in and put his lips against hers, it caused her to gasp slightly, the feel of him different now that they were here by choice.

Maybe it was her instinct, but she was careful not to show that his touch caused her pain; the bruises were not fading very well, since they were accumulating quickly, but she didn't want to spoil this for them. She could have this. It was something she could have, and she fully intended to fight to keep it. She had something brighter in this long dark tunnel. It made her smile for what felt like the first time in years and years.

She let him take her shirt off as she undid the buttons on his, and she fell back, smiling into his lips as he kissed her. His gentleness surprised her. It liberated her, even, to know he paid such attention and such care to her. He nuzzled her neck lightly and she found herself giggling lightly, becoming the woman she was with the fear stripped away from her. She wasn't scared of Ric. She was only scared of how he was able to see through her. She was scared of the good in him and what it was doing to her.

But she laughed anyway, because it was the first time she had felt free in far too long.

* * *

**Hope it's alright!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: This is set about three weeks ahead of the last chapter, so it's now the end of October/start of November. It looks at the situation from an outsider's perspective - people who aren't caught up in the mess and can see objectively what's happening.**

**As always, thanks to everyone who is reading/reviewing.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Jac watched from the sixth floor landing as Serena and Ric sat under the shelter outside, their hands joined and their fingers entwined. In the past few weeks, the pair seemed to have grown closer. They were close to begin with, of course, but Jac had seen their relationship change. It had shifted into something deeper, and Jac was certain they were sleeping together.

"What are you playing at, Serena?" muttered Jac.

"Talking to yourself?" came Jonny's slightly mocking tone. She turned to see him standing at her side with a strange expression on his face. "I know what you mean though. That pair will get themselves in bother one of these days."

Jac let out a bitter laugh and retorted, "Serena's in bother already. She's only going to end up taking Ric down with her."

Jonny was just staring intently at the pair as they talked while the rain poured down around them as they took shelter. "She's a beautiful woman," he commented gently. "You know, I never noticed it before, but she is. Her smile really is something else."

"Developing a taste for older women?" Jac remarked. For the first time in so long, she found herself sharing a joke and a genuine smile with Jonny Maconie while he made a face at her. "No, I know what you mean. She's beautiful. Maternal." She heard Jonny's sigh and could tell there was something bothering him. "What's up, Maconie?"

"That day she ripped strips off me," he admitted. "I never did get to the bottom of it."

"I didn't know you cared," admitted Jac. She turned away from the window and led Jonny back to the ward. Their silence was not strained or angry; it was how they told one another they were sharing a common concern, something that mattered to them both. She didn't know why, but Serena mattered to Jonny. Maybe it was because, like Jac, he was missing a mother, and Serena was the closest thing there was around here.

Together they sat at the nurses' station, setting about a computer each as they started to deal with their lists for the afternoon. Jac tried to ignore what her gut was telling her – that all hell was going to break loose.

It wasn't long before Jonny broke their contemplative silence. "I don't want anything bad to happen to her," he said, just loud enough for her to hear. Jac turned to face him, seeing immediately that his care and concern for the matter was genuine. "And anyway, I thought she had a boyfriend."

"She does," Jac agreed.

Jonny's expression changed to one of realisation and uncomfortable understanding that Serena Campbell, of all people, was cheating on her partner with a man everyone saw was Serena's best friend. "That's not like her."

Jac sighed. "You don't say," she sarcastically quipped at him. At that moment, a man behind them cleared his throat, and Jac was unnerved to see Peter Graham-Brown standing before her, looking less than pleased.

"Can I help you?" Jonny asked, leaving Jac to smirk as she heard how unimpressed he was with the man's manners.

"Yes," he said. "I'm looking for Serena Campbell. You know, brown hair, quite tall, irritating know-it-all smirk. Has a way of getting a reaction out of people."

Jonny sarcastically retorted, "Oh, Serena! Brown hair, quite tall, beautiful, talented surgeon, brilliant mind, sticks to her guns, fiercely loyal to people she cares about." It had been a long time since Jac had seen or heard anything like that come out of Jonny's mouth, and it reminded her that he wasn't a bad man. He was just an idiot, and a grieving one at that.

"Wrong floor," Jac said bluntly, looking at her computer screen so she didn't give away what she was really thinking.

When she did glance up at him, she saw that Peter wasn't liking her attitude very much. As much as she knew she shouldn't, she took some pleasure in rebelling against a man she did not like, even if this was only their second meeting. "Do you know where she was last night?" he asked impatiently. "She decided to disappear of the face of the planet, yet again. She must stop doing that. She can be quite infuriating. It's little wonder I get angry with her on occasion," he joked, like it was nothing. It twigged in Jac's head that there was something untoward about the whole relationship.

Although Jac had seen Serena turn off at the junction in the other direction from what she normally did, she knew what she was going to tell Peter. "Yes," she snapped. "She was here. I needed a general surgeon for a particularly complex case."

"Then why are you still working?" he challenged her.

Jonny was the one who spoke next, much to Jac's surprise. "Because, for the good of her patient, she pulled a double shift," he said. "Serena's done the same."

Jac turned to look at him, silently thanking him for his lies. "And you are?" asked Peter, his tone really quite rude as he spoke to the Scot.

"Jonny Maconie," he introduced himself. "I'm in charge of nursing on this ward. If you have no reason to remain here, please let us get on with our jobs. Ms. Campbell is most likely in a meeting with Mr. Self, our CEO, and I wouldn't interrupt him if I were you."

Jac internally groaned hoeplessly as Jonny lied, knowing he was now embroiled in this too. "I suggest you stop wandering the hospital and wait until her shift ends to phone her," Jac added, unable to keep all the hostility from her voice. She had no real reason to dislike him, since she encountered people with manners worse than his every day, but she found herself angered by him and the way he spoke to Serena's colleagues when her back was turned, and the way he spoke about Serena herself when, in front of her at work, he was well-mannered. He came across as charming to some, as Jac had witnessed on AAU, but she herself felt he was devious and manipulative and was doing his best to exercise control over Serena Campbell.

Peter did not argue back. Instead he gave a curt nod and said, "I've got to get back to the university anyway. I'm due to lecture soon." A lecturer. Jac found herself cynically amused by an educator so uneducated about how he could treat other people. As he turned away, she breathed a sigh of relief that it was over, and she came to the conclusion he was a man she would never manage to tolerate fully, but she would do her best for Serena's sake.

"What on Earth is she doing with a divot like him?" demanded Jonny. "He's a right piece of work. Why should she have to tell him where she is all the time?!" Jonny's outrage was a welcome change for Jac; it meant he was seeing beyond himself to the suffering of others, and it meant he could now see that he wasn't the only one with massive issues in their lives.

Jac sighed and pulled out her phone. _Peter's looking for you here. Told him you were with me all night on Darwin. __Meet me on Keller. __Watch your back._

She stood up and went to the lift, hearing Jonny running to catch up with her. "Jonny, go back," she ordered him. "You don't want to do this."

"I'm going to tell her she needs to get rid!" he protested. Jac got into the lift and she didn't expect Jonny to do what she told him, unsurprised when he joined her. "She needs to hear it."

Jac laughed. "Jonny, it doesn't work that way! Don't you see the problem with that plan? Don't you see that telling her that isn't going to make her leave him? It would be the same as if I had told you to just stop grieving or you were to tell me to just get over it and accept Paula as a mum. It just doesn't work like that!" she reinforced the point.

What good did it do to nag someone like Serena? She had her own mind and she was more than capable of using it. She just needed time and support, although Jonny was right in one respect – she needed to be told the way it was with no sugarcoating of anything. Serena had a thick skin. Like Jac, she probably wouldn't have got very far without it.

When they exited the lift, they went to the consultants' office and knocked on the door. Even if Serena wasn't there, Sacha might be, a theory proved true when the man, Jac's best friend, opened the door to her. "Jac," he smiled. "Jonny. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Is Serena back yet?"

"Um, no, not yet. She went off with Ric somewhere," Sacha said. "Why?"

"We need to see her," Jac said, walking in past Sacha, Jonny at her heels. The look of surprise on his face was to be expected. She guessed he had grown so used to her and Jonny being at each other's throats that to see them stable together was disconcerting for him. "She should be back soon," she added, knowing Serena would have understood the urgency in Jac's message to her.

Jonny sat on the edge of Serena's desk, looking like he was working up the nerve to actually say what he was thinking. Jac understood why he was wary. After all, Serena had lost her temper with him once before and it had not been pretty; the fact Jac and Colette had needed to intervene was evidence to that. Of course Jonny was going to think twice about going anywhere near Serena, never mind saying exactly what went through his head.

"Is this about the whole thing with the man Serena's seeing?" Sacha guessed. "Mary-Claire said she doesn't like the way he treats Serena."

"You use the word 'man' quite lightly there," Jonny snorted. "And, do you know what? I think he's hitting her as well as being a thorn in her side." Sacha looked down and Jac let out a gentle sigh. Of course the idea had crossed her mind. And it did make sense, but Jac didn't want to believe it. "That bruise she had on her face-"

"Was because she hit her face off my car," Jac interjected quickly. Jonny shot her a slightly amused look, knowing Jac would not lie about where someone she cared about got her injuries. "Long story. Don't ask."

Sacha chuckled, seemingly having heard it from Serena anyway. "I have to admit, she's not been herself lately. She's got a good friend in Ric though," he commented. Jac exchanged a look with Jonny, knowing with little evidence that it was so much more than friendship between Serena and Ric now. They were close and had been for a long time, but Jac knew where Serena had been last night, and many nights before, and it hadn't been on Darwin with her. "What I want to know is why she's putting up with the way she's being spoken to. If any of us did what Mary-Claire said Peter did, she'd kill us with a single look!"

As he finished speaking, a breathless Serena opened the door, obviously having run up the stairs rather than wait on the lift appearing. "Has he gone?" she asked.

"Well, he's not on Darwin. That's all I can tell you," Jac said. "I told him we were working together all night. I don't think he'd have appreciated it if I'd said where you really were." Serena nervously started to fiddle with that necklace of hers, glancing at Sacha and Jonny. "Don't worry. They're not going to land you in trouble. Though you seem to be doing a good job of that yourself. If you're going to cheat on him, at least make sure he doesn't get suspicious."

"How do you-"

"Ric," Sacha suddenly said. "You're sleeping with Ric, aren't you?" Serena looked sheepish but she did not seem to regret it, and Jac had to admit she would rather she was with Ric than Peter.

Jonny stood up and faced Serena, and Jac waited for the argument that was sure to follow. Jonny wasn't tactful at all, even though his opinion was entirely valid. He slowly put his hands on Serena's shoulders, making her flinch slightly. "This man you're seeing," he began, "he's just been on Darwin. The way he talks to people and the way he talks about you is disgusting, Ms. Campbell. If he was dating my sister I'd have decked him by now."

Serena's defences shot up, leaving Jac in no doubt they were fighting a losing battle. "And?" Serena asked, her eyebrow raised. "How do you know it isn't your attitude that stinks, Nurse Maconie?"

"Because I just _know_ he's not treating you right," Jonny argued. "And I don't like that he doesn't treat you right because you're worth so much more than being tied to someone like him."

"Get out, Nurse Maconie," Serena icily ordered him.

"Is that why you freaked out on me a couple of months ago?" Jonny demanded.

Jac stepped forward at the same time as Sacha did. "Enough, Jonny," Jac cautioned him, her hand falling onto his back as Serena's face froze now that someone outside of herself, Peter and Ric was addressing the possibility of fear and violence in her life.

But Jonny did not give in. "Is he throwing his weight around, coming a smack off you?"

"Get _out_," Serena growled. Jac pleadingly looked at Sacha, who seemed to understand what she needed when he pushed Jonny gently towards the door, leaving Jac under Serena's frozen stare.

* * *

**Hope it's OK!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thanks as usual to everyone reading and reviewing. I keep having laptop issues so updates are slower than usual.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Jac sighed, trying to work out if she was going to get anywhere with the woman in front of her. "He means well," was all Jac could say, the silence screaming in her ears. "He's a moron but he's trying to watch your back."

"I don't need my back watched," Serena quickly said, her voice hoarse, but Jac knew that the close call had once again shaken her. "I need to sort myself out. Jac," she murmured, finally staring her in the face. "Jac, what on Earth am I doing?" Jac didn't really know what to say. She couldn't deny the truth in what Serena said – she did need to sort herself out, big time – but how could she say that if what Jonny suspected was true? Now, holding the older woman's stare, she could not see a way that Jonny was wrong here.

"I don't know what you're doing, Serena, but you need to do it more carefully," Jac advised her. "If you want to be with Ric then be with him. But as for Peter...I've got to say I'm worried about you." Serena looked at the floor, and all that told Jac was that there was reason to worry. That something was badly wrong. That Serena was feeling like there was no way out of the hole she had dug herself. "Is Jonny right? Is he hitting you?"

Serena didn't need to open her mouth to answer; the look on her face said it all. It said that she was in love. It said that she was terrified. It said that she was standing with her back against the wall. It said that she was torn between her wish to live and her need to survive. It said she was strong but she was far from invincible. That one look just about broke Jac's heart, because she knew this wasn't the way she remembered Serena Campbell.

Jac didn't pretend to understand why Serena had done this, why she had cheated on a man with the power to destroy everything she was. All she really knew was that Serena was in a horrible place. "Look," sighed Jac, taking a step towards Serena. "I know it's not as simple as leaving Peter and being with Ric. It never is. But, Serena, you've got to think these things through. Ric isn't an escape route. If you aren't careful, it's all going to blow up in your face."

"You think I don't know that?" Serena snapped. "You think I don't know that there's nothing right about this? I'm not an idiot!"

"I didn't say you're an idiot."

"Then what _are_ you saying?" demanded Serena, her eyes narrowed.

"I'm _asking_ if you need my help."

Serena let out a slightly bitter laugh. "Sorry, but you, Jac Naylor, are offering to help someone when there's nothing in it for yourself?" The words stung. She was trying to do right by Serena and all she was doing was pushing Jac away; if she wasn't careful here, Jac knew she would end up making Serena push Ric away as well, leaving her isolated with Peter. That was the one thing Jac wasn't willing to allow to happen. "Give me a break, Jac."

"What do you think I'm trying to do?!" she shot back. "What do you think Sacha, Jonny, Ric, Mary-Claire, everyone who gives a damn about you, wants to do?!" Serena fell silent, her arguments meaning nothing as Jac's meant more with each retort she gave about the matter. "Jonny's right. You're worth so much more than living like this."

"It is what it is," Serena harshly informed her, and she said it like it wasn't the first time those words had passed her lips. "It's my decision. I will live with whatever the consequences may turn out to be."

Knowing she was not going to win, Jac groaned to herself and relinquished control back to Serena despite the fact that what she did with control wasn't healthy. So she kept her mouth shut and gently hugged Serena, showing kindness she never usually displayed. She knew how it felt to fear a man, to be in a corner, and she only wished that Serena would make an effort to get out of her corner rather than just back herself further into it.

* * *

Serena came out of theatre, careful to pull her scrub overshirt onto her arms to cover her bruises. She had tried to put out of her mind what Jac and Jonny had said, but she was failing. Jonny Maconie, who had been relentlessly self-absorbed for months now, had shouted at her that she deserved better than what she had. It shocked her, though she was never going to admit that to the nurse. His words echoed in her head even now, three hours after he had said them.

In her office she sat down opposite Sacha, silent as she tried to work out how to address this strained silence between them after he had figured out she was seeing Ric. To her surprise, it was Sacha who spoke first. "Serena, I don't condone lying or cheating. You know that," he began gently. "But I also think that, if Peter _is_ hurting you, you need help. If not from me then from Jac, or Jonny, or Ric. Anyone you trust. Because I hate to see you do this to yourself."

Serena looked up at him and she saw his genuine but sad smile. The last thing she wanted was for Sacha Levy to hate her for the questionable morality of her decisions. "I know you care, Sacha. I appreciate it, and I really am trying to find a way," she admitted. There was a knock at the door. "Come in," she called.

The door opened and Ric stepped in with a glance at Sacha. "Everything OK?" he carefully asked. "No trouble?"

"Jac and Jonny sent him on his way," she reassured him. Feeling that, now Sacha knew anyway, there was nothing stopping her, she stood up and pressed a kiss into his lips, wrapping her arms around his waist. She didn't miss Sacha's smile as she did so. "Everything is fine." In the moment, that was true, but in the long term it was a total lie. She could no longer delude herself. After all, what was right about what was going on here?

In Ric's arms she stared over at Sacha, silently begging him to play along, to keep the secret. To her relief he allowed her a little smile, though the sadness in it was something that unnerved her slightly. "Good," she heard Ric say gently. "What's with the public displays of affection?" he quizzed.

Serena chuckled and replied, "Sacha is hardly the general public. He, Jac and Jonny know we're together. They are the _only_ people who know, and it's going to stay that way," she added with a stern glare at Sacha; she was slightly empowered to see her stare still made Sacha squirm and nod his head in agreement to her demands. It meant she hadn't quite lost who she was. Not yet, at least. Not until she went home. Not until she saw Peter. Not until she had to leave her lie and live in the truth.

Serena knew he didn't approve of any circumstances surrounding this affair but Sacha had her back. He always had her back. Like Malick before him and Michael before Malick, he was a friend and he had always had her back. He just hadn't told her, because he didn't need to. She saw that now.

"Thank you," she mouthed to Sacha, holding Ric tight.

"No problem," he mimed back. She smiled and sighed, knowing this ideal could only last for a few more hours. When she closed her eyes for a moment, she remembered the night before last, when she had gone to Peter's for the night. As always, it started out fine. But then she had said something she should have known would have provoked him, and now she had the bruises on her back to prove the consequences of her words.

At half past six that night, she sat in her car outside her house, seeing that the hallway light was on, his car parked in front of hers. What on Earth had possessed her to give him a key? Now he had easy access. Now the only way he could be kept at bay was through lies or a barricade, two forms of warfare she knew would always come back to bite her in the end. Part of her really wanted her mother's wisdom here, but she wasn't willing to admit to Adrienne the mess in which she found herself up to her neck.

Cautiously she picked up her handbag fro the passenger footwell and opened the door, stepping into the late autumn air, cooling and sinking around her, the wind beginning to blow like it knew something she did not. It seemed these days everyone she knew believed they knew something she did not. Could it be that she was the one who was wrong?

She opened the front door; there was no need to unlock it since Peter had already done so. The warmth of the house hit her and she figured he had put the fire on in her absence. "I hear you were looking for me today!" she called through to him as she pulled of her coat and shoes. "Jac said you ended up on the wrong ward!"

"Yeah, I was worried," she heard him shout back, the fear in her building as his footsteps drew near. "Where were you last night?"

"Ugh," she sighed in despair – a total lie, of course. "Jac's patient took a turn for the worse and I was the best qualified GS consultant around. We both pulled a double so we could look after the poor sod a bit better. Familiarity with the case and all that."

He handed her a glass of wine and said, "You work far too hard, my love." She saw the scheming in his face and she knew he was in one of those moods. She could tell she had to walk a line here, and be careful not to stumble even slightly. She took the glass from him and smiled, smelling that he had cooked. "One of these days you will actually work yourself to death."

Within the hour, they had eaten and Serena was washing the dishes. She had a dishwasher, of course, but doing it by hand as both therapeutic and solitary. "Oh, just put it in the machine and stick it on," Peter impatiently ordered her. She closed her eyes and bit back her retort as she knew it could only ever cause a fight.

She said nothing and continued to methodically wash the plates and pots and pans, wanting nothing but some head space. She felt him come nearer, and a hand tried to pry a large oven tray from her own hands. "No, Peter, just let me do it!" she protested.

"There's a perfectly good dishwasher there!" he argued, his height advantage over her making her feel about two inches tall. "Why not just use the damn thing?!"

"Because I'm not lazy!" she retorted. He let go, the sudden lack of force pulling her making her fly backwards and the oven tray clatter to the floor. The silence between them was deafening, a solemn warning in the air as she watched his temper rise.

"What, and I am?" he demanded. "Just because I don't run around playing the heroic lady surgeon every day?"

"I didn't say that!" she incredulously laughed, more out of shock than anything else. "You're doing it again, taking everything I say out of context until you're the poor victim!" She shouldn't have said it but she was at her wit's end with this nonsense. He was no victim. Neither was she. They were both just foolish. But that didn't stop him taking her by the arms, his fingers pressing into old bruises as he pushed her backwards.

"Then what are you saying?"

For the first time, with her back against the wall, she felt nothing. She was desensitised to it. Instead of cowering, she smiled slightly, knowing there was a way to stop him hitting her. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him roughly, tugging at the top buttons of his shirt. Surprised, he reciprocated it, his mouth trailing kisses from her lips down her neck and onto her chest.

She smiled and she charmingly giggled but she felt nothing. She was hollow, the remnants of a feeling she knew rattling about inside her, shattered into thousands of irreconcilable pieces. Serena took his hand and led him upstairs, letting him hold her to the wall as he kissed her. He was not gentle like Ric was; instead of being careful with her clothes, he pulled her shirt over her head with no regard for how it was meant to be undone. As the fell onto her bed, as his body covered her, she felt, for the very first time, that her heart was broken. Not that it was breaking, that it was in the process of being damaged, but that it was already broken.

His hands wandered her body, and hers did his, but she was empty. There was no love or lust, or passion or enthusiasm in her. It was all on the surface. Inside she was empty, living only on a need to survive.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: This was meant to be finished earlier but my exam got brought forward so I've been revising :/ thanks as always to everyone reading/reviewing.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

"I mean, who does she think she is?!" Jac heard a voice from the table next to her as she sat with her phone and a coffee and well needed break from Darwin, opting for Pulses rather than the obvious location of her office on the sixth floor. She glanced around to see Peter Graham-Brown next to her, laughing loudly on the phone. "Calling me lazy. She can be a right bitch sometimes."

Jac felt her grip on her phone tighten as she reminded herself not to get involved in what was not her business. She didn't like to hear what he said and she tried to ignore it, but he seemed to find what he was recounting amusing. Triumphant, even. She closed her eyes and listened to him tell some mate of his how he had gone to lose his temper and ended up in bed. It was a corner Jac hated to imagine Serena in.

It was just as well Jonny showed up when he did, because she was about to turn to Peter and tell him to keep his stories to himself. Compared to Peter, Jonny was a saint in Jac's eyes. He didn't hit her and he loved Emma, which was more than could be said for the man speaking into a phone at the next table.

"How much effort is it taking for you not to jump over there and make him swallow that phone?" Jonny smirked slightly. She hated that he knew her so well, but he was right. She wanted to take that phone from Peter and throw it at his head. "He's a prat, isn't he?"

Jac snorted lightly. "Understatement of the year."

She saw the sympathy in Jonny's face, and she allowed her guard to drop in that moment as they shared a common worry that things had gone totally wrong for Serena. He sat down next to her and offered her a fork, placing a piece of cake between them. It appeared he was crawling out from within himself once more, starting to return to the Jonny Maconie she had once loved. The man who cared about others, who was not self-absorbed, who fought tooth and nail for what was right. They listened in silence to Peter for a good five minutes, disgusted by how normal he seemed to believe his treatment of Serena was.

When the lift doors opened, Jac looked around and felt panic spread over her, wondering if Serena knew Peter was here as she smiled and laughed with Ric, who was obviously making a joke. She glanced at Peter, who luckily sat with his back to the lift and to Jac, and turned to see Serena's hand in Ric's. She waved over at them, catching their attention when they shot her confused looks. She pointed over to Peter and signalled for them to cut it out. Fear crept onto Serena's face as she dropped Ric's hand.

Tension rose through the air as Serena put one foot in front of the other in silence, Ric at her side, and Peter continued to speak on the phone. "It's not like she's even that bright. God only knows how she qualified to be a doctor if she's that thick," he laughed. Serena stood a few feet away, looking extremely hurt as she heard what her partner had to say about her. Peter laughed at whatever his friend had said and added, "There is that. The daughter's got no hope if that's what she's got for a set of parents."

Jac noticed Jonny's knuckles turn white as he gripped his fork, his temper obviously rising quickly. "Calm down," Jac murmured to him, allowing herself to place a hand on his arm to try and ease his temper.

"Peter?" Serena said. The man turned to her, still looking amused, and turned back around. He made her wait, made her listen to him make his plans for the weekend, involving her without her permission. He had no manners towards her, and he appeared to think he was above her, that he was superior to her. When he eventually hung up the phone and turned around, Jac didn't know where to look. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she _could_ say to make Serena feel better about all she had just heard.

"Serena," he smiled, eyeing Ric with some distaste. He took her hand and pulled her over, but Jac could see she had reached the end of her tether. As a mother, she understood how Peter had crossed a line at the mention of Eleanor. What gave _him_ of all people the right to judge Serena's ability as a mother?

Jac looked at Jonny again, wondering how long it would take him to speak up. "Let go of me," Serena said. Peter stared her down, his height over her enough to intimidate many. "I mean it, Peter. Not here. Not now."

Peter laughed. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Serena opened her mouth, and she looked around at Jac. All she could do was give her a slight smile, encouraging her to stand up for herself. Ric remained close, ready to pick up the pieces if it went wrong. Jonny seemed transfixed on the situation. "You," Serena said. "At this moment in time, you are what is wrong with me. How _dare_ you question how I raised my daughter? How _dare_ you question my skill as a surgeon?"

Serena stared Peter in the face, having found the courage to stand against him. But Peter didn't like it and, as Serena struggled against him, Jac saw his hands grip tight around her arms, his fingers bruising into her wrists. Jonny stood up, and Jac sensed trouble approaching. This was something Jonny's upbringing would not allow him to stand by and watch without doing a thing to intervene.

Serena looked down at her wrists, her face pained, and back up at Peter. "Let go of me," she repeated, her tone deadly. But he did not. He did not move. "I can't do this anymore. I can't live with the way you treat me."

"What are you without me?" he laughed at her. "You're _nothing_, Serena."

Jac didn't understand how he could say that in front of people who loved Serena, and who Serena loved. He knew what he was doing, but his face said he really did not care what they thought of him. "I was something before I met you," Serena argued. "I had friends, family, my work, my freedom, and _you_ took that from me. Because of you, I am nothing. Without you, I can be anything."

Pride flooded through Jac; she understood the strength Serena must have had to summon to say that. "You're not going anywhere," he informed her. "Not without me. _We_ are going out to lunch."

"No, _you_ are going out to lunch," Serena corrected him. It was clear in her face she was done with this. Courage had come from somewhere; perhaps multiple sources reminded her she was Serena Campbell, the woman who could make braver men than Peter shake with fear. Still, probably out of cowardice more than bravery, he turned her around, his hand on her upper arm, but Ric stood in his path.

Jac groaned internally as Jonny stepped around her to stand in front of Peter, slightly to the left of Serena. "You know, there's something I've wanted to do since I first laid eyes on you," Jonny boldly told him.

"Yeah? What's that?"

Jonny drew back his fist and, in a split second, Serena ducked, Ric pulled her out of the way, Jac shot to her feet and Jonny's fist connected with Peter's face. "_That_ is for hurting Serena."

Peter wiped blood from his mouth and shot forward, ready to rip Jonny limb from limb. It was then that Ric dived between them, and Jac followed suit, her hands on Jonny's chest as she pushed him back and silently implored him not to start a brawl in the hospital. She understood why he had swung his fist, and that he was trying to get Serena out of Peter's grasp, but keeping a fight going was just going to make matters so much worse for everyone involved.

Ric had Peter against the wall, fury in his face as Serena went to split them up. "Ric, don't," she begged him. "Let's get him to AAU and patch him up."

"He doesn't deserve to be patched up," Jonny protested. Jac, irritated with him now, smacked the back of his head to shut him up.

Serena turned to him; to Jac's surprise, she was not angry with Jonny. There was actually some sort of gratitude buried between the fear and shock on Serena's face. "We're medics, Jonny. We have a duty of care to anyone who needs medical attention." Jonny sighed and stepped forward, and Jac knew he would not throw another punch. Instead he took Peter from Ric's grasp, pushing him towards AAU, one hand securely on his shoulder.

* * *

Ric found Serena that night in her office, sitting in the dark and staring at the floor with a glass in her and an almost empty bottle of wine on her desk. He sighed; he should have known her answer to this would have been to get drunk. The whole hospital now knew that her partner had put his hands on her and Jonny Maconie had broken his nose for it. Many – Elliot, Mo, Adele, Raf, Mary-Claire, Zosia, Dominic, Sacha – seemed to have sussed that it had been going on for a while. Everyone knew, and that was what Serena was bound to find the most difficult.

"Are you alright?" Ric asked her gently, sitting on the edge of her desk.

"I don't know," she murmured. "Where is he?"

"Raf treated him and sent him home," Ric told her. "Jonny has apparently been pulled up by Guy Self but Jac vouched for him so it looks like he's got off with it." He reached out and moved her hair back into place with his fingertips, unnerved that she didn't move a muscle. "Talk to me, Serena. Please, just talk to me."

She didn't look up when she spoke. She was half-cut; that much was obvious. "I don't know what to do. If I go back to him, Ric, he'll destroy me. I know it."

"Then don't go back to him," Ric suggested. "You don't love him. Not really."

Serena laughed slightly. "No, I love _you_. If I had seen that in the first place, I wouldn't be in this mess." To hear that stunned Ric. Had she just said she loved him? He knelt own before her, blocking her gaze to the floor and forcing her to look at him. In her face she hid nothing, and he saw everything. He saw how this tore her apart.

The moon shone in the window, lighting her face and putting on full display. Her expression was haunted, like there was a ghost at her back. He softly touched her face, making her look into his eyes. She smiled slightly, though he wasn't sure why, and took his hands in hers. "Ric," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

He smiled a little and shook his head, silently telling her it was fine. He loved her – of course he did – but he didn't know if she could accept that. It was her nature to hide her feelings when she was overwhelmed, and he didn't want to make her hide from him. Instead he took them both to their feet, staring into her moonlit face. He said nothing and he knew he didn't have to. He knew he could make her understand just with a look how he felt about her. Hearing the words might well have sent her reeling but seeing the look was only going to make her understand she was loved.

They shared a smile, and in that moment, nothing else mattered. Ric could feel Serena's hands on his face and she pulled him in, kissing him with a drunken ferocity in her manner. Tonight she was fearless, even if she had a heart full of fear. He embraced her lie only for tonight, because he knew she needed it. "Grab your stuff and we'll go to mine," he mumbled into her lips. She looked at him questioningly, and he explained, "I wouldn't fancy your chances of getting peace at your house, Serena."

It was the acknowledgement that it was by no means over that made Ric close to tears as Serena kissed him once more, knowing that they still had to work through a lot. It was just more pain for them, but it drew them closer. It made him love her more to know she had the courage she displayed today, even if the pain was killing her inside.

It was killing him, too.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Thanks, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed so far.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena stepped into Ric's house. It was now mid-November, and since September the place had become familiar to her. The warmth hit her with the almost-winter chill at her back, reminding her that the world outside was scary and her little world in here was secure and safe. She smiled slightly, having sobered up in the car. Her world had just taken a tumble off its own axis. She didn't know what she was doing.

She could vaguely recall telling Ric she loved him. It dawned on her that she really should not have admitted that. It put her in a position of vulnerability. It gave Ric some power over her. How could she trust that, like Peter and like Edward, he would not misuse that power? Abuse it, even? How could she ever know he wouldn't make her regret loving him?

"Serena?!" he called to her. The lights were not on. She stared the length of the hallway, straight into darkness, and wondered what her life had come to. She wanted that darkness in front of her to swallow her up so she would never have to face reality in the cold light of day. Reality was cruel and it was painful. She knew it wasn't over. Peter wasn't going away without a fight, and she knew he wouldn't leave her alone until she was torn apart inside.

Footsteps echoed through the dark, but she made no advance or retreat. She was frozen, rooted to the spot, trying to make sense of it all with her mind still in the haze of alcohol and fear. "Serena, it's OK. You're OK," Ric told her. The lights came on, the sudden flood blinding her. It was freedom and entrapment at the same time, and she couldn't make herself understand it. When he was there, he made her life hell, but when he was gone, her mind made her life hell. How could she know what to do anymore?

A hand softly touched her back and she let herself be guided to a sofa. She was just stunned. She couldn't speak. Even if she could, she doubted much sense would leave her mouth at that moment. "Say something," Ric gently said to her, his hand on her leg. "Come on. Say something."

What was happening to her? Why couldn't she function? She couldn't say anything. She could only shake her head slightly, terrified that he would see what lay behind her determination and her strength, beneath all he knew she was. Beneath what she let him see was a woman terrified of what she had become. She was still Serena Campbell. Somewhere inside her she knew that person was still there. She just couldn't find her right now.

She opened her mouth but nothing came out, the words she wanted to say catching in her throat. She stared Ric straight in the face. He understood. She could see he was able to understand why she was torn, why she was breaking, and how much it hurt. The look on his face was sad, heartbroken, and he was almost crying himself.

Did he love her that much? Did he love her enough that it hurt him when she was hurt? He reached out and gently took her face into his hands, and she felt his warmth reminding her that her life could be so much better than it was at the moment, if only she could let him in. If only she could breakdown and tell him the extremes her heart had felt, the emotions she had been driven to experience.

He got her to her feet and took her scarf off, helping out of her coat since it was needless in a home so comfortably warm. He placed them carefully on the arm of the sofa as she watched everything he did and tried to string something sensible she could say to him. But as she opened her mouth, not trusting herself at all, he pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She glanced at the clock over his shoulder; it was after eleven at night. The last time she had checked it had been quarter past six.

She put her arms around him and let herself lean against his body, exhausted by today's madness. Jonny had been a blessing in disguise when he had punched Peter; if he hadn't, she hated to think what would have happened. Would she have submitted to him again, gone against her very nature in a bid to protect herself? It wasn't who she was to succumb to him, but he sent fear into her bones. Every time he made a sudden movement, she flinched, readying herself for the potential blow that could arrive.

Of course, he wasn't always like that. He was capable of being funny, of being affectionate. But one row turned into another and another and another, and his temper boiled to the surface until, one morning after an argument over the way he parked his car, he had slammed her against the wall, her head hitting the door frame and her back hitting the door handle. Because she had believed his apology that night, he became more aggressive, his temper easier to break, the consequences worse each time.

A week later, he had stopped her on the stairs and insisted she stop speaking to Ric, having seen her share a hug with him upon his return to Holby, and hearing her on the phone with him a few times. Ric was a touchy subject for her, because she loved him, but he had kept it going until she had shouted at him that she wasn't going to lose her best friend over Peter's pathetic jealousy. For that she had tumbled down half a flight of stairs.

So when Ric had cornered her that morning, when he had seen her limp and her red eyes from crying in the car to work, she had pushed him out until she could calm herself down.

"I didn't mean to shut you out," she whispered, finally able to say something.

"I know," he sighed, kissing her jaw lightly. "Don't worry about it. Just focus on dealing with all of this." She sighed, knowing the fight was far from over. She knew striking back brought its repercussions. She had tonight to brace herself for it, because she knew there was no getting away from it.

She cast her mind back to that girl she had treated on AAU, whose husband had knocked her all to hell and left her to fend for herself. Wasn't that just what Peter did? Knock her down and leave her to wonder why, and to pick herself back up? Wasn't it, when she stripped it right down to its bones, just the same thing? Wasn't he just killing her slowly?

But Ric's arms reassured her that, no matter what, Ric was still here. Jac was still there for her. Jonny Maconie had defended her. Sacha Levy had taken her side, even though he knew of her infidelity. She wasn't alone. She just felt it. In reality, she was surrounded by people who had her back. Who had always had her back. But he had isolated her without her even realising it until it was far, far too late. Now here she stood, an island in herself, waiting for the tidal wave of trouble to wash her over.

She didn't know what else to do but stand and wait. She knew the pain was coming for her through the darkness. She was patiently waiting for it to hit her, but it was taking its sweet time. It was like she was surrounded by darkness, masking the pain creeping around her, waiting for the right moment to strike. The moment it had the power to destroy her. Was it waiting until she was truly on her knees to take that last little bit of strength from her?

But Ric was here, and she hoped he would not let her fall to her knees. At least not alone, anyway. "Ric," she murmured. "Can we just go to bed? I'm so tired. I've never felt this tired before."

"Of course," he replied, his hands rubbing her back gently. It was when he was like this, attentive and compliant, that she remembered he was her best friend before he was her lover. He would always be her friend. He would always look out for her. Why had she ever doubted that?

Together they put out the lights and headed to bed, carefully watching each other as they entered the bedroom. Ric was clearly upset, and he was clearly trying to be strong, but she could see in his face that he really did want to cry for her. He was more outwardly emotional than her at times, especially when it came to the people he cared about. With Jess he had lashed out to protect his daughter, and taken the blame for her mistake. With Kathy he had grieved and tried to make amends with his children. With Serena, it seemed, he felt the pain that she felt, and he let it show when they were alone in each other's company.

He handed her her pyjamas, the ones she left here. She smiled when she smelled the scent of washing powder and fabric conditioner. It was one of those little things she found she loved. "What are you smiling at?" Ric asked heavily.

"You've washed them," she smiled. She turned the purple cloth over in her hands and added, "Ironed them too." She brought them up to her face and inhaled deeply, basking in the smell of cleanliness after months of feeling contaminated. She looked up to find Ric looking utterly bemused, a slight smile on his face and tears in his eyes. "You didn't have to wash my clothes."

Looking slightly embarrassed, he shrugged his shoulders. "I just picked them up."

She shook her head lightly and started to undress, having given up on trying to hide the bruises from him a while ago. But when she looked up, still topless, she found him staring at her, and he looked a bit heartbroken. "What?" she demanded impatiently, tired and in need of peace, quiet and a warm bed.

"I just...I hate that I let that happen to you," he admitted.

"You didn't _let_ anything happen to me," Serena immediately contradicted him as she pulled her pyjama top over her head. "You've done nothing but support me, Ric, and for that, I am always going to be thankful." She saw him breaking in front of her eyes, all because he seemed to think there was something more he could have done. Serena sighed, wandered over to him and took his face into her hands, placing a gentle kiss upon his lips to assure him that she thought no less of him, and that she still held him close in her heart.

She smiled just a tiny bit and patted his cheek; she had to take a deep breath as she turned and put the bedside lamp on and the top light off, remembering neither had brushed their teeth. She was too exhausted. One night wouldn't kill them.

As they lay in bed together in the dark, she felt the pain drawing near. She heard Ric let out a soft cry and she realised something – tonight they were both waiting on the pain hitting them. It had just got to Ric first, and she felt it pacing circles around her. It was at that moment that she felt it catch her like a knife through the heart. It was almost a kind of physical pain as she tried to remain still so as not to let on that it had got her. But they needed each other, and they needed the comfort of one another's touch as they dealt with the pain that ravaged through them.

She turned to him and pretended she was asleep, her movement weak and floppy; her arm fell over his waist and she buried her face into his chest, knowing that the close, loving contact always served as a comfort to him.

Serena felt him kiss her hair, his arm wrapping around her and his hand resting on her back. Into his chest she smiled only for the fact that the pain had caught them and they finally had some shelter from the storms that raged in their heads and hearts. They had each other and, in that moment in the dark and in the arms of a friend and lover, that was enough.

* * *

**Hope it's OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


End file.
